Sample records for disorder-induced phase transition

In a strictly 1D spinless p-wave superconductor, disorder is known to induce a phasetransition between a topologically nontrivial phase and a trivial insulating phase when the mean free path l becomes of the order of the superconducting coherence length ξ. We show that, in constrast, a multichannel spinless p-wave superconductor goes through a series of phasetransitions alternating between topologically trivial and nontrivial phases upon increasing the disorder strength. The number of phasetransitions equals the channel number N and each phasetransition is accompanied by a Dyson singularity in the density of states ν (ɛ) ~ɛ-1| lnɛ | - 3 . The observed behavior is the result of an effective chiral symmetry allowing us to analytically investigate the phase boundaries and the density of states. The latter displays a power-law singularity ν (ɛ) ~ɛ | α | - 1 for small energies ɛ away from the critical points. Using the concept of ``superuniversality,'' we relate the exponent α to the wire's transport properties at zero energy and, hence, to the mean free path and the superconducting coherence length.

An N -channel spinless p -wave superconducting wire is known to go through a series of N topological phasetransitions upon increasing the disorder strength. Here, we show that at each of those transitions the density of states shows a Dyson singularity ν (ɛ ) ∝ɛ-1|lnɛ| -3 , whereas ν (ɛ ) ∝ɛ|α |-1 has a power-law singularity for small energies ɛ away from the critical points. Using the concept of "superuniversality" [Gruzberg et al., Phys. Rev. B 71, 245124 (2005), 10.1103/PhysRevB.71.245124], we are able to relate the exponent α to the wire's transport properties at zero energy and, hence, to the mean free path l and the superconducting coherence length ξ .

Abstract One of the first proposals for a two-dimensional topological insulator was made for graphene, the so called Kane-Mele model, but the very low spin-orbit coupling makes this phase undetectable. It has been suggested that randomly depositing certain heavy adatoms can amplify the effect by many orders, and that a dilute concentration should be enough to open a detectable topological gap. Still lacking, however, is a precise determination of the critical density of random adatoms based in the evolution of the topological index. Based in a finite size analysis of the topological index as a function of the density of randomly distributed adatoms, and also on the localization properties of the system accessed through the Lyapunov exponent, we not only determine the critical density but also establish the nature of this peculiar topological transition. EC acknowledge the financial support of FCT-Portugal through Grant No. EXPL/FIS-NAN/1720/2013.

This paper report on the disorderinduced semiconductor to metal transition (SMT) and modifications of grain boundaries in nanocrystalline zinc oxide thin film. Disorder is induced using energetic ion irradiation. It eliminates the possibility of impurities induced transition. However, it is revealed that some critical concentration of defects is needed for inducing such kind of SMT at certain critical temperature. Above room temperature, the current-voltage characteristics in reverse bias attributes some interesting phenomenon, such as electric field induced charge transfer, charge trapping, and diffusion of defects. The transition is explained by the defects induced disorder and strain in ZnO crystallites created by high density of electronic excitations.

In discussing phasetransitions, the first thing that we have to do is to define a phase. This is a concept from thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, where a phase is defined as a homogeneous system. As a simple example, let us consider instant coffee. This consists of coffee powder dissolved in water, and after stirring it we have a homogeneous mixture, i.e., a single phase. If we add to a cup of coffee a spoonful of sugar and stir it well, we still have a single phase -- sweet coffee. However, if we add ten spoonfuls of sugar, then the contents of the cup will no longer be homogeneous, but rather a mixture of two homogeneous systems or phases, sweet liquid coffee on top and coffee-flavored wet sugar at the bottom...

The mechanism for the fast switching between amorphous, metastable, and crystalline structures in chalcogenide phase-change materials has been a long-standing puzzle. Based on first-principles calculations, we study the atomic and electronic properties of metastable Ge2Sb2Te5 and investigate the atomic disorder to understand the transition between crystalline hexagonal and cubic structures. In addition, we study the topological insulating property embedded in these compounds and its evolution upon structural changes and atomic disorder. We also discuss the role of the surface-like states arising from the topological insulating property in the metal-insulator transition observed in the hexagonal structure.

The mechanism for the fast switching between amorphous, metastable, and crystalline structures in chalcogenide phase-change materials has been a long-standing puzzle. Based on first-principles calculations, we study the atomic and electronic properties of metastable Ge{sub 2}Sb{sub 2}Te{sub 5} and investigate the atomic disorder to understand the transition between crystalline hexagonal and cubic structures. In addition, we study the topological insulating property embedded in these compounds and its evolution upon structural changes and atomic disorder. We also discuss the role of the surface-like states arising from the topological insulating property in the metal-insulator transition observed in the hexagonal structure.

We use extensive density matrix renormalization group (DMRG) calculations to explore the phase diagram of the random S=1 antiferromagnetic Heisenberg chain with a power-law distribution of the exchange couplings. We use open chains and monitor the lowest gaps, the end-to-end correlation function and the string order parameter. For this distribution at weak disorder, the system is in the gapless Haldane phase with a disorder dependent dynamical exponent, z , and z=1 signals the border between the nonsingular and singular regions of the local susceptibility. For strong enough disorder, which approximately corresponds to a uniform distribution, a transition into the random singlet phase is detected, at which the string order parameter as well as the average end-to-end correlation function are vanishing and at the same time the dynamical exponent is divergent. Singularities of physical quantities are found to be somewhat different in the random singlet phase and in the critical point.

We study four-dimensional interacting fermions in a strong magnetic field, using the holographic Sakai-Sugimoto model of intersecting D4- and D8-branes in the deconfined, chiral-symmetric parallel phase. We find that as the magnetic field is varied, while staying in the parallel phase, the fermions exhibit a first-order phasetransition in which their magnetization jumps discontinuously. Properties of this transition are consistent with a picture in which some of the fermions jump to the lowest Landau level. Similarities to known magnetic phasetransitions are discussed.

Optically induced ultrafast electronic excitations with sufficiently long lifetimes may cause strong effects on phasetransitions like structural and nonmetal→metal ones and on supercooling, supersaturation, etc. Examples are the transitions diamond→graphite, graphite→graphene, non-metal→metal, solid→liquid and vapor→liquid, solid. Photoinduced formation of graphene and water condensation of saturated or supersaturated vapor due to increased bonding amongst water molecules are of particular interest. These nonequilibrium transitions are an ultrafast response, on a few hundred fs time scale, to the fast low to large energy electronic excitations. The energy of the photons is converted into electronic energy via electronic excitations changing the cohesive energy. This changes the chemical potential controlling the phasetransition. In view of the advances in laser optics photon induced transitions are expected to become an active area in nonequilibrium physics and phasetransition dynamics. Conservation laws like energy or angular momentum conservation control the time during which the transitions occur. Since the photon induced effects result from weakening or strengthening of the bonding between the atoms or molecules transitions like solid/liquid, etc can be shifted in both directions. Photoinduced transitions will be discussed from a unified point of view. PMID:21411879

Based on the first-principles electronic structure calculations, we analyze the chemical and magnetic mechanisms stabilizing the cubic phase in Fe2-based Heusler materials, which were predicted to be tetragonal when being chemically ordered. In agreement with recent experimental data, we found that these compounds crystallize within the so-called “inverted” cubic Heusler structure perturbed by a certain portion of the intrinsic chemical disorder. Understanding of these mechanisms is a necessary step to guide the successful future synthesis of the stable Fe2-based tetragonal phases, which are promising candidates for the rare-earth-free permanent magnets.

In a one-dimensional spinless p-wave superconductor with coherence length ξ, disorderinduces a phasetransition between a topologically nontrivial phase and a trivial insulating phase at the critical mean-free path l=ξ/2. Here, we show that a multichannel spinless p-wave superconductor goes through an alternation of topologically trivial and nontrivial phases upon increasing the disorder strength, the number of phasetransitions being equal to the channel number N. The last phasetransition, from a nontrivial phase into the trivial phase, takes place at a mean-free path l=ξ/(N+1), parametrically smaller than the critical mean-free path in one dimension. Our result is valid in the limit that the wire width W is much smaller than the superconducting coherence length ξ.

An analytic treatment of the one Higgs doublet, electroweak phasetransition is given. The phasetransition is first order, occurs by the nucleation of thin walled bubbles, and completes at a temperature where the order parameter, _ {T}, is significantly smaller than it is when the origin becomes absolutely unstable. The rate of anomalous baryon number violation is an exponentially sensitive function of T. In very minimal extensions of the standard model it is quite easy to increase T so that anomalous baryon number violation is suppressed after completion of the phasetransition. Hence baryogenesis at the electroweak phasetransition is tenable in minimal extensions of the standard model. In some cases additional phasetransitions are possible. For a light Higgs boson, when the top quark mass is sufficiently large, the state where the Higgs field has a vacuum expectation value = 246 GeV is not the true minimum of the Higgs potential. When this is the case, and when the top quark mass exceeds some critical value, thermal fluctuations in the early universe would have rendered the state = 246 GeV unstable. The requirement that the state = 246 GeV is sufficiently long lived constrains the masses of the Higgs boson and the top quark. Finally, we consider whether local phasetransitions can be induced by heavy particles which act as seeds for deformations in the scalar field. Semi-classical reasoning suggests that, when a particle receives a contribution to its mass from the vacuum expectation value of a scalar, under certain conditions, the ground state of particle number one contains a 'dimple' or shallow scalar field condensate around the particle. We argue that this is not the case. A careful analysis, taking into account quantum mechanics, shows that the semi-classical approximation is a poor one. We find that there are no energetically favored one-particle dimple solutions for perturbative couplings.

An analytic treatment of the one Higgs doublet, electroweak phasetransition is given. The phasetransition is first order, occurs by the nucleation of thin walled bubbles and completes at a temperature where the order parameter, {l angle}{phi}{r angle}{sub T} is significantly smaller than it is when the origin becomes absolutely unstable. The rate of anomalous baryon number violation is an exponentially function of {l angle}{phi}{r angle}{sub T}. In very minimal extensions of the standard model it is quite easy to increase {l angle}{phi}{r angle}{sub T} so that anomalous baryon number violation is suppressed after completion of the phasetransition. Hence baryogenesis at the electroweak phasetransition is tenable in minimal of the standard model. In some cases additional phasetransitions are possible. For a light Higgs boson, when the top quark mass is sufficiently large, the state where the Higgs field has a vacuum expectation value {l angle}{phi}{r angle} = 246 GeV is not the true minimum of the Higgs potential. When this is the case, and when the top quark mass exceeds some critical value, thermal fluctuations in the early universe would have rendered the state {l angle}{phi}{r angle} = 246 GeV unstable. The requirement that the state {l angle}{phi}{r angle} = 246 GeV is sufficiently long lived constrains the masses of the Higgs boson and the top quark. Finally, we consider whether local phasetransitions can be induced by heavy particles which act as seeds for deformations in the scalar field.

An analytic treatment of the one Higgs doublet, electroweak phasetransition is given. The phasetransition is first order, occurs by the nucleation of thin walled bubbles and completes at a temperature where the order parameter, {l_angle}{phi}{r_angle}{sub T} is significantly smaller than it is when the origin becomes absolutely unstable. The rate of anomalous baryon number violation is an exponentially function of {l_angle}{phi}{r_angle}{sub T}. In very minimal extensions of the standard model it is quite easy to increase {l_angle}{phi}{r_angle}{sub T} so that anomalous baryon number violation is suppressed after completion of the phasetransition. Hence baryogenesis at the electroweak phasetransition is tenable in minimal of the standard model. In some cases additional phasetransitions are possible. For a light Higgs boson, when the top quark mass is sufficiently large, the state where the Higgs field has a vacuum expectation value {l_angle}{phi}{r_angle} = 246 GeV is not the true minimum of the Higgs potential. When this is the case, and when the top quark mass exceeds some critical value, thermal fluctuations in the early universe would have rendered the state {l_angle}{phi}{r_angle} = 246 GeV unstable. The requirement that the state {l_angle}{phi}{r_angle} = 246 GeV is sufficiently long lived constrains the masses of the Higgs boson and the top quark. Finally, we consider whether local phasetransitions can be induced by heavy particles which act as seeds for deformations in the scalar field.

It is demonstrated from first principles how the existence of string-like structures can cause a system to undergo a phasetransition. In particular, the role of topologically stable cosmic string in the restoration of spontaneously broken symmetries is emphasized. How the thermodynamic properties of strings alter when stiffness and nearest neighbor string-string interactions are included is discussed.

Phasetransitions are well defined in physics through concepts such as spontaneous symmetry breaking, order parameter, entropy, and critical exponents. But emergence --- also exhibiting whole-part relations (such as top-down influence), unpredictability, and insensitivity to microscopic detail --- is a loosely-defined concept being used in many disciplines, particularly in psychology, biology, philosophy, as well as in physics[1,2]. I will review the concepts of emergence as used in the various fields and consider the extent to which the methods of phasetransitions can clarify the usefulness of the concept of emergence both within the discipline of physics and beyond.1. Robert B. Laughlin, A Different Universe: Reinventing Physics from the Bottom Down (New York: Basic Books, 2005). 2. George F.R. Ellis, ``Physics and the Real World'', Physics Today, vol. 58, no. 7 (July 2005) pp. 49-54.

A quantum phasetransition between the symmetric (polar) phase and the phase with broken symmetry can be induced in a ferromagnetic spin-1 Bose-Einstein condensate in space (rather than in time). We consider such a phasetransition and show that the transition region in the vicinity of the critical point exhibits scalings that reflect a compromise between the rate at which the transition is imposed (i.e., the gradient of the control parameter) and the scaling of the divergent healing length in the critical region. Our results suggest a method for the direct measurement of the scaling exponent {nu}.

At variance with structural ferroic phasetransitions which give rise to macroscopic tensors coupled to macroscopic fields, criteria defining antiferroelectric (AFE) phasetransitions are still under discussion due to the absence of specific symmetry properties characterizing their existence. They are recognized by the proximity of a ferroelectric (FE) phase induced under applied electric field, with a double hysteresis loop relating the induced polarization to the electric field and a typical anomaly of the dielectric permittivity. Here, we show that there exist indeed symmetry criteria defining AFE transitions. They relate the local symmetry of the polar crystallographic sites emerging at an AFE phasetransition with the macroscopic symmetry of the AFE phase. The dielectric properties of AFE transitions are deduced from a Landau theoretical model in which ferroelectric and ferrielectric phases are shown to stabilize as the result of specific symmetry-allowed couplings of the AFE order parameter with the field-induced polarization.

This paper is devoted to studying the thermodynamic formalism for suspension flows defined over countable alphabets. We are mostly interested in the regularity properties of the pressure function. We establish conditions for the pressure function to be real analytic or to exhibit a phasetransition. We also construct an example of a potential for which the pressure has countably many phasetransitions.

Disorder can have a wide variety of consequences for the physics of phasetransitions. Some transitions remain unchanged in the presence of disorder while others are completely destroyed. In this thesis we study the effects of disorder on several classical and quantum phasetransitions in condensed matter systems. After a brief introduction, we study the ferromagnetic phasetransition in a randomly layered Heisenberg magnet using large-scale Monte-Carlo simulations. Our results provide numerical evidence for the exotic infinite-randomness scenario. We study classical and quantum smeared phasetransitions in substitutional alloys A1-xBx. Our results show that the disorder completely destroys the phasetransition with a pronounced tail of the ordered phase developing for all compositions x < 1. In addition, we find that short-ranged disorder correlations can have a dramatic effect on the transition. Moreover, we show an experimental realization of the composition-tuned ferromagnetic-to-paramagnetic quantum phasetransition in Sr1-xCa xRuO3. We investigate the effects of disorder on first-order quantum phasetransitions on the example of the N-color quantum Ashkin-Teller model. By means of a strong disorder renormalization group, we demonstrate that disorder rounds the first-order transition to a continuous one for both weak and strong coupling between the colors. Finally, we investigate the superfluid-insulator quantum phasetransition of one-dimensional bosons with off-diagonal disorder by means of large-scale Monte-Carlo simulations. Beyond a critical disorder strength, we find nonuniversal, disorder dependent critical behavior.

We examine the dynamics of the electroweak phasetransition in the early Universe. For Higgs masses in the range 46 less than or = M sub H less than or = 150 GeV and top quark masses less than 200 GeV, regions of symmetric and asymmetric vacuum coexist to below the critical temperature, with thermal equilibrium between the two phases maintained by fluctuations of both phases. We propose that the transition to the asymmetric vacuum is completed by percolation of these subcritical fluctuations. Our results are relevant to scenarios of baryogenesis that invoke a weakly first-order phasetransition at the electroweak scale.

Berry Phase and time-dependent Pancharatnam phase are investigated for nuclear spin polarization in a liquid by a rotation magnetic field, where two-state mixture effect is exactly included in the geometric phases. We find that when the system of nuclear spin polarization is in the unpolarized state, the transitive phenomena of both Berry phase and Pancharatnam phase are taken place. For the polarized system, in contrast, such a transition is not taken place. It is obvious that the transitions of geometric phase correspond to the phase change of physical system.

In the present work we study the hadron-quarkphase transition with boson condensation by investigating the binodal surface and extending it to finite temperature in order to mimic the QCD phase diagram.

We provide a description of phasetransitions at finite temperature in strongly coupled field theories using holography. For this purpose, we introduce a general class of gravity duals to superconducting theories that exhibit various types of phasetransitions (first or second order with both mean and non-mean field behavior) as parameters in their Lagrangian are changed. Moreover the size and strength of the conductivity coherence peak can also be controlled. Our results suggest that certain parameters in the gravitational dual control the interactions responsible for binding the condensate and the magnitude of its fluctuations close to the transition.

The rather general circumstances under which a phasetransition in hadronic matter at finite temperature to an abnormal phase in which baryon effective masses become small and in which copious baryon-antibaryon pairs appear is emphasized. A preview is also given of a soliton model of dense matter, in which at a density of about seven times nuclear density, matter ceases to be a color insulator and becomes increasingly color conducting. 22 references.

This is the final report of a one-year, Laboratory Directed Research and Development (LDRD) project at the Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL). Non-equilibrium phasetransitions play a central role in a very broad range of scientific areas, ranging from nuclear, particle, and astrophysics to condensed matter physics and the material and biological sciences. The aim of this project was to explore the path to a deeper and more fundamental understanding of the common physical principles underlying the complex real time dynamics of phasetransitions. The main emphasis was on the development of general theoretical tools to deal with non-equilibrium processes, and of numerical methods robust enough to capture the time-evolving structures that occur in actual experimental situations. Specific applications to Laboratory multidivisional efforts in relativistic heavy-ion physics (transition to a new phase of nuclear matter consisting of a quark-gluon plasma) and layered high-temperature superconductors (critical currents and flux flow at the National High Magnetic Field Laboratory) were undertaken.

A self-assembled phospholipid monolayer at an air-water interface is a well-defined model system for studying surface thermodynamics, membrane biophysics, thin-film materials, and colloidal soft matter. Here we report a study of two-dimensional phasetransitions in the dipalmitoylphosphatidylcholine (DPPC) monolayer at the air-water interface using a newly developed methodology called constrained drop surfactometry (CDS). CDS is superior to the classical Langmuir balance in its capacity for rigorous temperature control and leak-proof environments, thus making it an ideal alternative to the Langmuir balance for studying lipid polymorphism. In addition, we have developed a novel Langmuir-Blodgett (LB) transfer technique that allows the direct transfer of lipid monolayers from the droplet surface under well-controlled conditions. This LB transfer technique permits the direct visualization of phase coexistence in the DPPC monolayer. With these technological advances, we found that the two-dimensional phase behavior of the DPPC monolayer is analogous to the three-dimensional phasetransition of a pure substance. This study has implications in the fundamental understanding of surface thermodynamics as well as applications such as self-assembled monolayers and pulmonary surfactant biophysics. PMID:27479299

Many crystalline materials undergo a crystalline-to-amorphous (c-a) phasetransition when subjected to energetic particle irradiation at low temperatures. By focusing on the mean-square static atomic displacement as a generic measure of chemical and topological disorder, we are led quite naturally to a generalized version of the Lindemann melting criterion as a conceptual framework for a unified thermodynamic approach to solid-state amorphizing transformations. In its simplest form, the generalized Lindemann criterion assumes that the sum of the static and dynamic mean-square atomic displacements is constant along the polymorphous melting curve so that c-a transformations can be understood simply as melting of a critically-disordered crystal at temperatures below the glass transition temperature where the supercooled liquid can persist indefinitely in a configurationally-frozen state. Evidence in support of the generalized Lindemann melting criterion for amorphization is provided by a large variety of experimental observations and by molecular dynamics simulations of heat-induced melting and of defect-induced amorphization of intermetallic compounds.

We estimate the degree of circular polarization for the gravitational waves generated during the electroweak and QCD phasetransitions from the kinetic and magnetic helicity generated by bubble collisions during those cosmological phasetransitions.

During a first-order phasetransition, gravitational radiation is generated either by bubble collisions or by turbulence. For phasetransitions which took place at the electroweak scale and beyond, the signal is expected to be within the sensitivity range of planned interferometers such as LISA or BBO. We review the generation of gravitational waves in a first-order phasetransition and discuss the dependence of the spectrum on the dynamics of the phasetransition.

We here illustrate how a well-founded study of the brain may originate in assuming analogies with phase-transition phenomena. Analyzing to what extent a weak signal endures in noisy environments, we identify the underlying mechanisms, and it results a description of how the excitability associated to (non-equilibrium) phase changes and criticality optimizes the processing of the signal. Our setting is a network of integrate-and-fire nodes in which connections are heterogeneous with rapid time-varying intensities mimicking fatigue and potentiation. Emergence then becomes quite robust against wiring topology modification—in fact, we considered from a fully connected network to the Homo sapiens connectome—showing the essential role of synaptic flickering on computations. We also suggest how to experimentally disclose significant changes during actual brain operation.

We study the physics of quantum phasetransitions from the perspective of nonequilibrium thermodynamics. For first-order quantum phasetransitions, we find that the average work done per quench in crossing the critical point is discontinuous. This leads us to introduce the quantum latent work in analogy with the classical latent heat of first order classical phasetransitions. For second order quantum phasetransitions the irreversible work is closely related to the fidelity susceptibility for weak sudden quenches of the system Hamiltonian. We demonstrate our ideas with numerical simulations of first, second, and infinite order phasetransitions in various spin chain models. PMID:25019721

Phasetransitions occur in such diverse and important systems as ferromagnets, liquid crystals and the early Universe. The dynamics of phasetransitions such as these have been studied for decades, but the analytical models still need a great deal of improvement before they can adequately describe all time stages and regions under the coexistence curve. Numerical studies can supplement these analytical theories, but they need to accurately describe the continuum equations that they are intended to solve. This thesis describes a method for removing the lattice- spacing and renormalization-mass dependence of Langevin simulations of phase mixing in (2 + 1)-dimensional asymmetric Ginzburg-Landau models with short-ranged interactions. Also, the spread in the order parameter near the critical value of the control parameter due to critical slowing down is used to more accurately determine this value of the control parameter in these simulations. In addition, a new method is proposed for quantifying the departure from equilibrium. The method explores the behavior of the rate of change of the momentum-integrated structure function, ΔStot( t), as it evolves in time. As an illustration, we examine a (1 + 1)-dimensional model of a stochastic Ginzburg-Landau model at varying cooling rates. We show that ΔStot(t) displays a peak which scales with cooling time-scale as t1/2q in the over-damped limit and t1/3q in the underdamped limit. The peak amplitude was found to scale with cooling time-scale as t6/5q in all viscosities studied.

Strongly correlated electron systems manifest themselves in various phases, due to a delicate balance between many types of competing interactions, such as electron-electron interaction, electron-phonon interaction, and disorderinduced interaction. Application of certain external stimuli, such as temperature, electric field, stress to such systems often breaks this balance, leading to phasetransitions. Furthermore, in systems with reduced dimensions, confinement effects often play important roles in driving these phasetransitions. Among the many experimental tools that have been used to study phasetransitions in strongly correlated electron systems, resistance noise spectroscopy, assisted with conventional transport measurements, provides an unique perspective in exploring the microscopic dynamics near well-studied phasetransitions in superconductors, magnetic materials, semiconductors, 2D electron systems etc.. In this thesis, using noise spectroscopy and transport measurements, two classes of strongly correlated electron systems in the nanoribbon form were studied: charge density wave systems (NbSe3 and o-TaS 3), and tungsten (W) doped vanadium dioxide (VO2) system. Due to the size of the samples, finite size effects were found to be important in the transport and noise measurements of both NbSe3 and o-TaS3. A model that treats the pinning by bulk, surface and contacts separately was proposed to explain an anomaly, which was observed in the differential resistance vs. electric field at temperatures below the Peierls transition in NbSe3. This model, combined with slow motions of the CDW due to the fast freezing of the thermal excitations over the Peierls gap, were suggested to account for discrete peaks in the Ohmic regime of o-TaS 3, at temperatures below 100 K. In addition, a nonmonotonic behaivor in the electric field dependence of noise magnitude was seen in NbSe 3 in certain temperature ranges, and can be explained as signatures of thermally activated

The title of the workshop, ''The QCD PhaseTransitions'', in fact happened to be too narrow for its real contents. It would be more accurate to say that it was devoted to different phases of QCD and QCD-related gauge theories, with strong emphasis on discussion of the underlying non-perturbative mechanisms which manifest themselves as all those phases. Before we go to specifics, let us emphasize one important aspect of the present status of non-perturbative Quantum Field Theory in general. It remains true that its studies do not get attention proportional to the intellectual challenge they deserve, and that the theorists working on it remain very fragmented. The efforts to create Theory of Everything including Quantum Gravity have attracted the lion share of attention and young talent. Nevertheless, in the last few years there was also a tremendous progress and even some shift of attention toward emphasis on the unity of non-perturbative phenomena. For example, we have seen some efforts to connect the lessons from recent progress in Supersymmetric theories with that in QCD, as derived from phenomenology and lattice. Another example is Maldacena conjecture and related development, which connect three things together, string theory, super-gravity and the (N=4) supersymmetric gauge theory. Although the progress mentioned is remarkable by itself, if we would listen to each other more we may have chance to strengthen the field and reach better understanding of the spectacular non-perturbative physics.

We present two approaches to the dynamics of a quench-induced phasetransition in the quantum Ising model. One follows the standard treatment of thermodynamic second order phasetransitions but applies it to the quantum phasetransitions. The other approach is quantum, and uses Landau-Zener formula for transition probabilities in avoided level crossings. We show that predictions of the two approaches of how the density of defects scales with the quench rate are compatible, and discuss the ensuing insights into the dynamics of quantum phasetransitions.

Clouds are repeatedly identified as a leading source of uncertainty in future climate predictions. Of particular importance are stratocumulus clouds, which can appear as either (i) closed cells that reflect solar radiation back to space or (ii) open cells that allow solar radiation to reach the Earth's surface. Here we show that these clouds regimes -- open versus closed cells -- fit the paradigm of a phasetransition. In addition, this paradigm characterizes pockets of open cells as the interface between the open- and closed-cell regimes, and it identifies shallow cumulus clouds as a regime of higher variability. This behavior can be understood using an idealized model for the dynamics of atmospheric water as a stochastic diffusion process. With this new conceptual viewpoint, ideas from statistical mechanics could potentially be used for understanding uncertainties related to clouds in the climate system and climate predictions.

Statistical inference problems arising within signal processing, data mining, and machine learning naturally give rise to hard combinatorial optimization problems. These problems become intractable when the dimensionality of the data is large, as is often the case for modern datasets. A popular idea is to construct convex relaxations of these combinatorial problems, which can be solved efficiently for large-scale datasets. Semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations are among the most powerful methods in this family and are surprisingly well suited for a broad range of problems where data take the form of matrices or graphs. It has been observed several times that when the statistical noise is small enough, SDP relaxations correctly detect the underlying combinatorial structures. In this paper we develop asymptotic predictions for several detection thresholds, as well as for the estimation error above these thresholds. We study some classical SDP relaxations for statistical problems motivated by graph synchronization and community detection in networks. We map these optimization problems to statistical mechanics models with vector spins and use nonrigorous techniques from statistical mechanics to characterize the corresponding phasetransitions. Our results clarify the effectiveness of SDP relaxations in solving high-dimensional statistical problems. PMID:27001856

Statistical inference problems arising within signal processing, data mining, and machine learning naturally give rise to hard combinatorial optimization problems. These problems become intractable when the dimensionality of the data is large, as is often the case for modern datasets. A popular idea is to construct convex relaxations of these combinatorial problems, which can be solved efficiently for large-scale datasets. Semidefinite programming (SDP) relaxations are among the most powerful methods in this family and are surprisingly well suited for a broad range of problems where data take the form of matrices or graphs. It has been observed several times that when the statistical noise is small enough, SDP relaxations correctly detect the underlying combinatorial structures. In this paper we develop asymptotic predictions for several detection thresholds, as well as for the estimation error above these thresholds. We study some classical SDP relaxations for statistical problems motivated by graph synchronization and community detection in networks. We map these optimization problems to statistical mechanics models with vector spins and use nonrigorous techniques from statistical mechanics to characterize the corresponding phasetransitions. Our results clarify the effectiveness of SDP relaxations in solving high-dimensional statistical problems. PMID:27001856

The Internet age is changing the structure of science, and affecting interdisciplinary interactions. Publication profiles connecting mathematics with molecular biology and condensed matter physics over the last 40 years exhibit common phasetransitions indicative of the critical role played by specific interdisciplinary interactions. The strengths of the phasetransitions quantify the importance of interdisciplinary interactions.

A microscopic analysis, based on nuclear energy density functionals, is presented for shape phasetransitions in Nd isotopes. Low-lying excitation spectra and transition probabilities are calculated starting from a five-dimensional Hamiltonian, with parameters determined by constrained relativistic mean-field calculations for triaxial shapes. The results reproduce available data, and show that there is an abrupt change of structure at N = 90, that corresponds to a first-order quantum phasetransition between spherical and axially deformed shapes.

We study the effects of quenched weak disorder on quantum phasetransitions in disordered magnets. The presence of disorder in the system can lead to a variety of exotic phenomena, e.g., the smearing of transitions or quantum Griffiths singularities. Phasetransitions are smeared if individual spatial regions can order independently of the bulk system. In paper I, we study smeared quantum phasetransitions in binary alloys A1-xBx that are tuned by changing the composition x. We show that in this case the ordered phase is extended over all compositions x < 1. We also study the composition dependence of observables. In paper II, we investigate the influence of spatial disorder correlations on smeared phasetransitions. As an experimental example, we demonstrate in paper III, that the composition-driven ferromagnetic-toparamagnetic quantum phasetransition in Sr1-xCaxRuO3 is smeared. When individual spatial regions cannot order but fluctuate slowly, the phasetransition is characterized by strong singularities in the quantum Griffiths phase. In paper IV, we develop a theory of the quantum Griffiths phases in disordered ferromagnetic metals. We show that the quantum Griffiths singularities are stronger than the usual power-law quantum Griffiths singularities in insulating magnets. In paper V, we present an efficient numerical method for studying quantum phasetransitions in disordered systems with O(N) order parameter symmetry in the large-N limit. Our algorithm solves iteratively the large-N self-consistent equations for the renormalized distances from criticality. Paper VI is devoted to the study of transport properties in the quantum Griffiths phase associated with the antiferromagnetic quantum phasetransition in a metal. We find unusual behavior of transport properties which is in contrast to the normal Fermi-liquid behavior.

Phasetransitions have been a research focus in many-body physics over past decades. Cold ions, under strong Coulomb repulsion, provide a repealing paradigm of exploring phasetransitions in stable confinement by electromagnetic field. We demonstrate various conformations of up to sixteen laser-cooled 40Ca+ ion crystals in a home-built surface-electrode trap, where besides the usually mentioned structural phasetransition from the linear to the zigzag, two additional phasetransitions to more complicated two-dimensional configurations are identified. The experimental observation agrees well with the numerical simulation. Heating due to micromotion of the ions is analysed by comparison of the numerical simulation with the experimental observation. Our investigation implies very rich and complicated many-body behaviour in the trapped-ion systems and provides effective mechanism for further exploring quantum phasetransitions and quantum information processing with ultracold trapped ions. PMID:26865229

We have recently studied two solid phases of bulk pentacene (polymorphs H and C) by means of lattice phonon Raman spectroscopy. The assignment, previously based on lattice dynamics calculations alone, is now verified by X-ray diffraction measurements, conclusively confirming the existence of both polymorphs. Furthermore, Raman phonon spectra indicate a pressure-induced phasetransition where the polymorph C (lower density phase) transforms to the H form (higher density phase). The onset pressure for the phasetransition is only 0.2 GPa. The phase change is irreversible.

The relativistic mean-field framework, extended to include correlations related to restoration of broken symmetries and to fluctuations of the quadrupole deformation, is applied to a study of shape transitions in Nd isotopes. It is demonstrated that the microscopic self-consistent approach, based on global effective interactions, can describe not only general features of transitions between spherical and deformed nuclei, but also the singular properties of excitation spectra and transition rates at the critical point of quantum shape phasetransition.

We develop a unified effective field theory approach to the high-temperature phasetransitions in QCD and string theory, incorporating winding modes (time-like Polyakov loops, vortices) as well as low-mass states (pseudoscalar mesons and glueballs, matter and dilaton supermultiplets). Anomalous scale invariance and the Z3 structure of the centre of SU(3) decree a first-order phasetransition with simultaneous deconfinement and Polyakov loop condensation in QCD, whereas string vortex condensation is a second-order phasetransition breaking a Z2 symmetry. We argue that vortex condensation is accompanied by a dilaton phasetransition to a strong coupling regime, and comment on the possible role of soliton degrees of freedom in the high-temperature string phase. On leave of absence from the School of Physics & Astronomy, University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA.

The effects of solid-solid phase changes on subsolidus convection in the large icy moons of the outer solar system are considered. Phasetransitions affect convection via processes that distort the phase change boundary and/or influence buoyancy through thermal expansion. Linear stability analyses are carried out for ice layers with a phase change at the midplane. Two exothermic phasetransitions (ice I - ice II, ice VI - ice VIII) and two endothermic transitions (ice I - ice III, ice II - ice V) are considered. For the exothermic cases, the phase change can either impede or enhance whole-layer convection. For the endothermic cases, the phse change always inhibits whole-layer convective overturn and tends to enforce two-layer convection. These results play some constraints on possible models of icy satellite evolution and structure.

This study investigates the well-documented phenomenon of phasetransition in financial markets using combined information from both return and volume changes within short time intervals. We suggest a new measure for the phasetransition behaviour of markets, calculated as a return distribution conditional on local variance in volume imbalance, and show that this measure successfully captures phasetransition behaviour under various conditions. We analyse the intraday trade and quote dataset from the KOSPI 200 index futures, which includes detailed information on the original order size and the type of each initiating investor. We find that among these two competing factors, the submitted order size yields more explanatory power on the phenomenon of market phasetransition than the investor type.

A central quantity of importance for ultracold atoms is contact, which measures two-body correlations at short distances in dilute systems. It appears in universal relations among thermodynamic quantities, such as large momentum tails, energy and dynamic structure factors, through the renowned Tan relations. However, a conceptual question remains open as to whether or not contact can signify phasetransitions that are insensitive to short-range physics. Here we show that, near a continuous classical or quantum phasetransition, contact exhibits a variety of critical behaviours, including scaling laws and critical exponents that are uniquely determined by the universality class of the phasetransition, and a constant contact per particle. We also use a prototypical exactly solvable model to demonstrate these critical behaviours in one-dimensional strongly interacting fermions. Our work establishes an intrinsic connection between the universality of dilute many-body systems and universal critical phenomena near a phasetransition. PMID:25346226

In this Proceedings, the author will describe the behavior of two different quantum-mechanical systems as a function of increasing temperature. While these systems are somewhat different, the questions addressed are very similar, namely, how does one describe transitions in phase of a finite many-body system; how does one recognize these transitions in practical calculations; and how may one obtain the order of the transition.

Motivated by social and biological interactions, a novel type of phasetransition model is provided in order to investigate the emergence of the clustering phenomenon in networks. The model has two types of interactions: one is attractive and the other is repulsive. In each iteration, the phase of a node (or an agent) moves toward the average phase of its neighbors and moves away from the average phase of its non-neighbors. The velocities of the two types of phasetransition are controlled by two parameters, respectively. It is found that the phasetransition phenomenon is closely related to the topological structure of the underlying network, and thus can be applied to identify its communities and overlapping groups. By giving each node of the network a randomly generated initial phase and updating these phases by the phasetransition model until they reach stability, one or two communities will be detected according to the nodes’ stable phases, confusable nodes are moved into a set named Of. By removing the detected communities and the nodes in Of, another one or two communities will be detected by an iteration of the algorithm, …. In this way, all communities and the overlapping nodes are detected. Simulations on both real-world networks and the LFR benchmark graphs have verified the efficiency of the proposed scheme.

I review recent ab initio results by the Nuclear Lattice Effective Field Theory Collaboration showing that nature lies close to a quantum phasetransition between an alpha-particle gas and nuclear liquid. I discuss the control parameter of this transition and the implications for clustering in nuclei and improving ab initio nuclear structure calculations.

We discuss phasetransitions in three-component models of superfluidity and superconductivity. We present Monte Carlo simulations showing that for certain types of inter-component interactions, these systems exhibit novel types of first order phasetransitions that are driven by spin-waves. Supported by NSF CAREER Award DMR-0955902, Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation through the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences andSwedish Research Council.

Persistent homology analysis, a recently developed computational method in algebraic topology, is applied to the study of the phasetransitions undergone by the so-called mean-field XY model and by the ϕ4 lattice model, respectively. For both models the relationship between phasetransitions and the topological properties of certain submanifolds of configuration space are exactly known. It turns out that these a priori known facts are clearly retrieved by persistent homology analysis of dynamically sampled submanifolds of configuration space.

We present the basics of a powerful contemporary statistical mechanical technique that can be used by students to explore first-order phasetransitions by themselves and for models of their own construction. The technique is a generalization of the well-known Peierls argument and is applicable to various models on a lattice. We illustrate the technique with the help of two simple models that were recently used to simulate phasetransitions on surfaces.

We argue that extensions of the Standard Model (SM) with a strongly first-order electroweak phasetransition generically predict significant deviations of the Higgs couplings to gluons, photons, and Z bosons from their SM values. Precise experimental measurements of the Higgs couplings at the LHC and at the proposed next-generation facilities will allow for a robust test of the phasetransition dynamics. To illustrate this point, in this paper we focus on the scenario in which loops of a new scalar field are responsible for the first-order phasetransition, and study a selection of benchmark models with various SM gauge quantum numbers of the new scalar. We find that the current LHC measurement of the Higgs coupling to gluons already excludes the possibility of a first-order phasetransition induced by a scalar in a sextet, or larger, representation of the SU(3) c . Future LHC experiments (including HL-LHC) will be able to definitively probe the case when the new scalar is a color triplet. If the new scalar is not colored, an electron-positron Higgs factory, such as the proposed ILC or TLEP, would be required to test the nature of the phasetransition. The extremely precise measurement of the Higgsstrahlung cross section possible at such machines will allow for a comprehensive and definitive probe of the possibility of a first-order electroweak phasetransition in all models we considered, including the case when the new scalar is a pure gauge singlet.

Dynamically induced phasetransitions in metals, within the present discussion, are those that take place within a time scale characteristic of the shock waves and any reflections or rarefactions involved in the loading structure along with associated plastic flow. Contemporary topics of interest include the influence of loading wave shape, the effect of shear produced by directionality of the loading relative to the sample dimensions and initial velocity field, and the loading duration (kinetic effects, hysteresis) on the appearance and longevity of a transformed phase. These topics often arise while considering the loading of parts of various shapes with high explosives, are typically two or three-dimensional, and are often selected because of the potential of the transformed phase to significantly modify the motion. In this paper, we look at current work on phasetransitions in metals influenced by shear reported in the literature, and relate recent work conducted at Los Alamos on iron's epsilon phasetransition that indicates a significant response to shear produced by reflected elastic waves. A brief discussion of criteria for the occurrence of stress induced phasetransitions is provided. Closing remarks regard certain physical processes, such as fragmentation and jet formation, which may be strongly influenced by phasetransitions. Supported by the DoD/DOE Joint Munitions Technology Development Program.

Cosmological phasetransitions are predicted by particle physics models, and have a variety of important cosmological consequences, which depend strongly on the dynamics of the transition. In this work we investigate in detail the general features of the development of a first-order phasetransition. We find thermodynamical constraints on some quantities that determine the dynamics, namely, the latent heat, the radiation energy density, and the false-vacuum energy density. Using a simple model with a Higgs field, we study numerically the amount and duration of supercooling and the subsequent reheating and phase coexistence. We analyze the dependence of the dynamics on the different parameters of the model, namely, the energy scale, the number of degrees of freedom, and the couplings of the scalar field with bosons and fermions. We also inspect the implications for the cosmological outcomes of the phasetransition.

The continuous quantum phasetransition between noninteracting, time-reversal symmetric topological and trivial insulators in three dimensions is described by the massless Dirac fermion. We address the stability of this quantum critical point against short range electronic interactions by using renormalization group analysis and mean field theory. For sufficiently weak interactions, we show that the nature of the direct transition remains unchanged. Beyond a critical strength of interactions we find that either (i) there is a direct first order transition between two time reversal symmetric insulators or (ii) the direct transition is eliminated by an intervening time reversal and inversion odd "axionic" insulator. We also demonstrate the existence of an interaction driven first order quantum phasetransition between topological and trivial gapped states in lower dimensions.

Thermotropic phase boundaries (TPBs), as thermal analogs of morphotropic phase boundaries (MPBs), are associated with the thermal inter-ferroelectric phasetransitions. Similar to an MPB, a TPB exhibits a characteristically flattened energy profile which favors polarization rotation, thus giving rise to a structurally bridging low-symmetry phase. We report on the kinetic process of thermal inter-ferroelectric phasetransitions in BaTiO3 and KNbO3 using the phase-field method. The domain structures are found to play key roles in stabilizing the monoclinic phase. In simple domain structures, the monoclinic phase is a transient phase and cannot be stabilized into its neighboring phase regimes. However, by introducing structural inhomogeneity (orthogonal in-plane domain twins), we found that the monoclinic phase can be stabilized over a range of over 100 K across the transition. As a result, the piezoelectric properties are enhanced due to the stabilized monoclinic phase. In addition to the emergence of new piezoelectric components with monoclinic symmetry, most of the original components present in the tetragonal symmetry also show substantial enhancement with the rotation of polarization.

We study nonequilibrium phasetransitions in the presence of disorder that locally breaks the symmetry between two equivalent macroscopic states. In low-dimensional equilibrium systems, such random-field disorder is known to have dramatic effects: it prevents spontaneous symmetry breaking and completely destroys the phasetransition. In contrast, we show that the phasetransition of the one-dimensional generalized contact process persists in the presence of random-field disorder. The ultraslow dynamics in the symmetry-broken phase is described by a Sinai walk of the domain walls between two different absorbing states. We discuss the generality and limitations of our theory, and we illustrate our results by large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. PMID:23215170

La2-xSrxCuO4is a well-known superconducting system showing various electronic properties as a function of Sr content. Especially, epitaxial thin layers of the compound show enormous increase of superconducting critical temperature (Tc) by a compressive strain. It has been reported that Tc can be controlled by misfit strain, thickness, and oxygen annealing. In this study, we report structural and transport properties of high quality epitaxial La1.85Sr0.15CuO4thin films. According to x-ray diffraction study, c-axis lattice parameter shows no significant change for various film thicknesses and the in-plane lattice parameters of the films are coherently matched with that of substrate. Electronic transport measurements show a clear superconductor-to-insulator transition (SIT), accompanying variation of Tc depending on film thickness. These results are analyzed by using the McMillan equation to find the relation between the Tc and a disorder correlating with film thickness. We have found the disorder exhibits an explicit power-law behavior with respect to film thickness in our La1.85Sr0.15CuO4 thin films.

A time-domain analysis of the effects of pigment inhomogeneity upon the dynamics of optical excitations within bacterial light-harvesting complexes is presented. We focus upon examining the manifestation of disorder scattering in polarized femtosecond spectroscopy and the degree to which exciton delocalization is revealed in emission and transient absorption anisotropy measurements. The time evolution of states prepared by impulsive excitation of a statically disordered circular aggregate model for LH2 antenna complexes have been calculated exactly for varying degrees of pigment inhomogeneity. For a Gaussian distribution of site energies, the dynamics of coherence-loss (scattering) is explored as a function of the ratio of the standard deviation (σ) of the distribution to the intersite interaction energy (β). It is found that modest degrees of disorder (σ/β˜0.4) are sufficient to cause scattering on a sub-100 fs time scale. Results from model calculations of the pump-probe anisotropy strongly suggest that the initial ultrafast emission depolarization component reported for LH1 and LH2 antenna complexes by several groups represents the decay of an initially delocalized exciton, prepared by coherent excitation of eigenstates that become partially localized due to inhomogeneity. A novel approach to studying exciton coherence is proposed based on measurement of the anisotropy of band→band transient absorption transitions, which exhibit a pronounced sensitivity to exciton delocalization.

Due to a large discrepancy between theory and experiment, the electronic character of crystalline boron carbide B13C2 has been a controversial topic in the field of icosahedral boron-rich solids. We demonstrate that this discrepancy is removed when configurational disorder is accurately considered in the theoretical calculations. We find that while the ordered ground state B13C2 is metallic, the configurationally disordered B13C2 , modeled with a superatom-special quasirandom structure method, goes through a metal to nonmetal transition as the degree of disorder is increased with increasing temperature. Specifically, one of the chain-end carbon atoms in the CBC chains substitutes a neighboring equatorial boron atom in a B12 icosahedron bonded to it, giving rise to a B11Ce (BBC) unit. The atomic configuration of the substitutionally disordered B13C2 thus tends to be dominated by a mixture between B12(CBC) and B11Ce (BBC). Due to splitting of valence states in B11Ce (BBC), the electron deficiency in B12(CBC) is gradually compensated.

We report in situ x-ray diffraction studies in tetracyanoethylene (TCNE) at high pressure using diamond anvil cell (DAC) at Elettra synchrotron source, Trieste, Italy. Experiments were performed with both the polymorphic phases (monoclinic and cubic) of TCNE as the starting phase. While starting with monoclinic (the high temperature stable) TCNE, it was found that the Bragg peaks get broadened with increase of pressure and above 5 GPa only few broad peaks remained to be observed. On release of pressure from 6.4 GPa, when the sample started turning black, the diffraction pattern at ambient pressure corresponds to cubic, the other crystalline phase of TCNE. Results reconfirm the monoclinic to cubic transition at high pressure but via an intermediate 'disordered' phase. This settles a number of conflicting issues. TCNE represents only system, which undergoes transition from one crystalline to another crystalline phase via a 'disordered' metastable phase at high pressure. When the starting phase was cubic (the low temperature stable) no apparent phasetransition was observed up to 10.8 GPa.

Previous computational and experimental studies have shown self-assembled structure depends strongly on building block shape. New synthesis techniques have led to building blocks with reconfigurable shape and it has been demonstrated that building block reconfiguration can induce bulk structural reconfiguration. However, we do not understand systematically how this transition happens as a function of building block shape. Using a recently developed ``digital alchemy'' framework, we study the thermodynamics of shape-driven crystal-crystal transitions. We find examples of shape-driven bulk reconfiguration that are accompanied by first-order phasetransitions, and bulk reconfiguration that occurs without any thermodynamic phasetransition. Our results suggest that for well-chosen shapes and structures, there exist facile means of bulk reconfiguration, and that shape-driven bulk reconfiguration provides a viable mechanism for developing functional materials.

We introduce a discrete multiplicative process as a generic model of competition. Players with different abilities successively join the game and compete for finite resources. Emergence of dominant players and evolutionary development occur as a phasetransition. The competitive dynamics underlying this transition is understood from a formal analogy to statistical mechanics. The theory is applicable to bacterial competition, predicting novel population dynamics near criticality.

In cosmological first-order phasetransitions, the microscopic interaction of the phasetransition fronts with non-equilibrium plasma particles manifests itself macroscopically as friction forces. In general, it is a nontrivial problem to compute these forces, and only two limits have been studied, namely, that of very slow walls and, more recently, ultra-relativistic walls which run away. In this paper we consider ultra-relativistic velocities and show that stationary solutions still exist when the parameters allow the existence of runaway walls. Hence, we discuss the necessary and sufficient conditions for the fronts to actually run away. We also propose a phenomenological model for the friction, which interpolates between the non-relativistic and ultra-relativistic values. Thus, the friction depends on two friction coefficients which can be calculated for specific models. We then study the velocity of phasetransition fronts as a function of the friction parameters, the thermodynamic parameters, and the amount of supercooling.

We study the properties of a D6-brane probe in the Aharony-Bergman-Jafferis-Maldacena (ABJM) background with smeared massless dynamical quarks in the Veneziano limit. Working at zero temperature and nonvanishing charge density, we show that the system undergoes a quantum phasetransition in which the topology of the brane embedding changes from a black hole to a Minkowski embedding. In the unflavored background the phasetransition is of second order and takes place when the charge density vanishes. We determine the corresponding critical exponents and show that the scaling behavior near the quantum critical point has multiplicative logarithmic corrections. In the background with dynamical quarks the phasetransition is of first order and occurs at nonzero charge density. In this case we compute the discontinuity of several physical quantities as functions of the number Nf of unquenched quarks of the background.

It is shown that the potential galaxy formation and large-scale structure problems of objects existing at high redshifts (Z {approx gt} 5), structures existing on scales of 100M pc as well as velocity flows on such scales, and minimal microwave anisotropies ({Delta}T/T) {approx lt} 10{sup {minus}5} can be solved if the seeds needed to generate structure form in a vacuum phasetransition after decoupling. It is argued that the basic physics of such a phasetransition is no more exotic than that utilized in the more traditional GUT scale phasetransitions, and that, just as in the GUT case, significant random gaussian fluctuations and/or topological defects can form. Scale lengths of {approximately}100M pc for large-scale structure as well as {approximately}1 M pc for galaxy formation occur naturally. Possible support for new physics that might be associated with such a late-time transition comes from the preliminary results of the SAGE solar neutrino experiment, implying neutrino flavor mixing with values similar to those required for a late-time transition. It is also noted that a see-saw model for the neutrino masses might also imply a tau neutrino mass that is an ideal hot dark matter candidate. However, in general either hot or cold dark matter can be consistent with a late-time transition. 47 refs., 2 figs.

It is shown that the potential galaxy formation and large scale structure problems of objects existing at high redshifts (Z approx. greater than 5), structures existing on scales of 100 M pc as well as velocity flows on such scales, and minimal microwave anisotropies ((Delta)T/T) (approx. less than 10(exp -5)) can be solved if the seeds needed to generate structure form in a vacuum phasetransition after decoupling. It is argued that the basic physics of such a phasetransition is no more exotic than that utilized in the more traditional GUT scale phasetransitions, and that, just as in the GUT case, significant random Gaussian fluctuations and/or topological defects can form. Scale lengths of approx. 100 M pc for large scale structure as well as approx. 1 M pc for galaxy formation occur naturally. Possible support for new physics that might be associated with such a late-time transition comes from the preliminary results of the SAGE solar neutrino experiment, implying neutrino flavor mixing with values similar to those required for a late-time transition. It is also noted that a see-saw model for the neutrino masses might also imply a tau neutrino mass that is an ideal hot dark matter candidate. However, in general either hot or cold dark matter can be consistent with a late-time transition.

We investigate different aspects connected with shape phasetransitions in nuclei and the possible occurrence of dynamical symmetries at the critical points. We discuss in particular the behaviour of the neighbour odd nuclei at the vicinity of the critical points in the even nuclei. We consider both the case of the transition from the vibrational behaviour to the gamma-unstable deformation (characterized within the collective Bohr hamiltonian by the E(5) critical point symmetry) and the case of the transition from the vibrational behaviour to the stable axial deformation (characterized by the X(5) symmetry). The odd particle is assumed to be moving in the three single particle orbitals j = 1/2,3/2,5/2, a set of orbitals that is known to lead to possible supersymmetric cases. The coupling of the odd particle to the Bohr hamiltonian does lead in fact in the former case at the critical point to the E(5/12) boson-fermion dynamical symmetry. An alternative approach to the two shape transitions is based on the Interacting Boson Fermion Model. In this case suitably parametrized boson-fermion hamiltonians can describe the evolution of the odd system along the shape transitions. At the critical points both energy spectra and electromagnetic transitions were found to display characteristic patterns similar to those displayed by the even nuclei at the corresponding critical point. The behaviour of the odd nuclei can therefore be seen as necessary complementary signatures of the occurrence of the phasetransitions.

We explore packet traffic dynamics in a data network model near phasetransition point from free flow to congestion. The model of data network is an abstraction of the Network Layer of the OSI (Open Systems Interconnect) Reference Model of packet switching networks. The Network Layer is responsible for routing packets across the network from their sources to their destinations and for control of congestion in data networks. Using the model we investigate spatio-temporal packets traffic dynamics near the phasetransition point for various network connection topologies, and static and adaptive routing algorithms. We present selected simulation results and analyze them.

Starting from the Lennard-Jones interatomic potential, a modified cell theory has been used to describe the solid-liquid phasetransition in argon. The cell-size variations may be evaluated by a self-consistent condition. With the inclusion of cell-size variations, the transition temperature, the solid and liquid densities, and the liquid-phase radial-distribution functions have been calculated. These ab initio results are in satisfactory agreement with molecular-dynamics calculations as well as experimental data on argon.

We point out that with a specific counting of states loop quantum gravity implies that black holes perform a phasetransition at a certain characteristic temperature TC . In this phasetransition the punctures of the spin network on the stretched horizon of the black hole jump, in effect, from the vacuum to the excited states. The characteristic temperature TC may be regarded as the lowest possible temperature of the hole. From the point of view of a distant observer at rest with respect to the hole, the characteristic temperature TC corresponds to the Hawking temperature of the hole.

We study the current of particles on a lattice, where to each site a different hopping probability has been associated and the particles can move only in one direction. We show that the queueing of the particles behind a slow site can lead to a first-order phasetransition, and derive analytical expressions for the configuration of slow sites for this to happen. We apply this stochastic model to describe the translation of mRNAs. We show that the first-order phasetransition, uncovered in this work, is the process responsible for the classification of the proteins having different biological functions. PMID:19519001

In a previous paper [S. Nakamura, H. Ooguri, and C. S. Park, Phys. Rev. D 81, 044018 (2010)], we showed that the Reissner-Nordstroem black hole in the five-dimensional anti-de Sitter space coupled to the Maxwell theory with the Chern-Simons term is unstable when the Chern-Simons coupling is sufficiently large. In the dual conformal field theory, the instability suggests a spatially modulated phasetransition. In this paper, we construct and analyze nonlinear solutions which describe the endpoint of this phasetransition. In the limit where the Chern-Simons coupling is large, we find that the phasetransition is of the second order with the mean field critical exponent. However, the dispersion relation with the Van Hove singularity enhances quantum corrections in the bulk, and we argue that this changes the order of the phasetransition from the second to the first. We compute linear response functions in the nonlinear solution and find an infinite off-diagonal DC conductivity in the new phase.

In pipe flow, turbulence first arises in the form of localized turbulent patches called puffs. The flow undergoes a transition to sustained turbulence via spatio-temporal intermittency, with puffs splitting, decaying and merging in the background laminar flow. However, the due to mean advection of the puffs and the long timescales involved (~107 advective time units), it is not possible to study the transition in typical laboratory set-ups. So far, it has only been possible to indirectly estimate the critical point for the transition. Here, we exploit the stochastic memoryless nature of the puff decay and splitting processes to construct a pipe flow set-up, that is periodic in a statistical sense. It then becomes possible to study the flow for sufficiently long times and characterize the transition in detail. We present measurements of the turbulent fraction as a function of Reynolds number which in turn allows a direct estimate of the critical point. We present evidence that the transition has features of a phasetransition of second order.

We report a study on configurational weak phasetransitions for a freestanding monolayer graphene. Firstly, we characterize weak transformation neighborhoods by suitably bounding the metric components. Then, we distinguish between structural and configurational phase changes and elaborate on the second class of them. We evaluate the irreducible invariant subspaces corresponding to these phase changes and lay down symmetry-breaking as well as symmetry-preserving stretches. In the reduced bifurcation diagram, symmetry-preserving stretches are related to a turning point with a change of stability but not of symmetry. Symmetry-breaking stretches are related to a first-order weak phasetransition. We evaluate symmetry-breaking stretches as well as their generating cosets. The reduced bifurcation diagram consists of three transcritical bifurcating curves which are all unstable but can be stabilized producing a subcritical bifurcation. We, also, shortly comment on the hysteretical behavior that might appear in this case.

In massive gravity, some new phenomena of black hole phasetransition are found. There are more than one critical points under appropriate parameter values and the Gibbs free energy near critical points also has some new properties. Moreover, the Maxwell equal area rule is also investigated and the coexistence curve of the black hole is given.

We designed an experiment to reproduce the hysteresis phenomenon of chocolate appearing in the heating and cooling process, and then established a model to relate the solidification degree to the order parameter. Based on the Landau-Devonshire theory, our model gave a description of the hysteresis phenomenon in chocolate, which lays the foundations for the study of the phasetransition behavior of chocolate.

The dual condensate is a new QCD phasetransition order parameter, which connnects confinement and chiral symmetry breaking as different mass limits. We discuss the relation between the fermion spectrum at general boundary conditions and the dual condensate and show numerical results for the latter from unquenched SU(3) lattice configurations.

An open problem in cosmology is to explain the origin of baryon abundance implied by observational cosmology. Among the many proposed explanations, electroweak baryogenesis is particularly attractive in that its ingredients is discoverable by modern experiments. The analysis of the electroweak phasetransition in the early universe comprises an integral component within the larger study of electroweak baryogenesis. In this work, I make a detailed investigation of the conventional analysis of the electroweak phasetransition commonly found in literature, and explicitly demonstrate that results are not independent of the choice of gauge. In its place, I provide a manifestly gauge-independent method for the analysis, review sources of theoretical and numerical uncertainties, and explore avenues for further development. Next, I explore the dynamics of the electroweak phasetransition in two minimal extensions of the Standard Model of particle physics. Within these simple models, I describe a novel pattern of electroweak symmetry breaking favorable for baryogenesis that can serve as a paradigm for phasetransition analysis in more complicated models.

We exhibit examples of mixing subshifts of finite type and of continuous potentials such that there are phasetransitions but the pressure is always strictly convex. More surprisingly, we show that the pressure can be analytic on some interval although there exist several equilibrium states.

The Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) and Susceptible-Exposed-Infected-Recovered (SEIR) models describe the spread of epidemics in a society. In the typical case, the ratio of the susceptible individuals fall from a value S 0 close to 1 to a final value Sf , while the ratio of recovered individuals rise from 0 to Rf = 1 - Sf . The sharp passage from the level zero to the level Rf allows also the modeling of phasetransitions by the number of "recovered" individuals R(t) of the SIR or SEIR model. In this article, we model the sol-gel transition for polyacrylamide-sodium alginate (SA) composite with different concentrations of SA as SIR and SEIR dynamical systems by solving the corresponding differential equations numerically and we show that the phasetransitions of "classical" and "percolation" types are represented, respectively, by the SEIR and SIR models.

Researching the thermal evolution of the Earth's mantle on numerical base is very challenging. During the last decade different approaches are put forward in oder to understand the picture of the today's Earth's mantle. One way is to incorporate all the known features and physics (plate tectonics, phasetransitions, CMB-topography, ...) into numerical models and make them as complex (or 'complete') as possible to capture Earth's mantle processes and surface signals. Another way is, to take a step back and look at less complex models which account for single processes and their interaction and evolution. With these 'simpler' models one is able look in detail into the physical processes and dependencies on certain parameters. Since the knowledge of slab stagnation in the transitions zone of the Earth's mantle the question whether the mantle is or at least has been layered to some degree is still under debate. On this basis we address two important features that lead to layered mantle convection and may affect each other and with this the thermal evolution of the mantle. It is commonly known the main mantle mineral olivine pass through various phase changes with depth [1]. Detailed numerical studies had been carried out to ascertain the influence on convective motion and planetary evolution [2]. It is still heavily discussed whether the endothermic phase change at 660km depth can lead an isolated lower mantle. Most of the numerical studies favour a model which has phases of layering that are disrupted by catastrophic events. In the last years double-diffusive convection has also been intensively studied with regard to planetary mantle evolution such as pile formation and core-mantle boundary topography [3]. However, another striking feature still posing open questions are evolving layers self-organised from a previous non layered state. Considering a chemical component that influences the density of a fluid in addition to the temperature leads to dynamical phenomena

We have studied the dynamic phasetransition (DPT) of the kinetic Ising model in systems with surfaces within the mean-field approximation. Varying the surface exchange coupling strength J(s), the amplitude of the externally applied oscillating field h(0), and its period P, we explore the dynamic behavior of the layer-dependent magnetization and the associated DPTs. The surface phase diagram shows several features that resemble those of the equilibrium case, with an extraordinary bulk transition and a surface transition for high J(s) values, independent from the value of h(0). For low J(s), however, h(0) is found to be a crucial parameter that leads to nonuniversal surface behavior at the ordinary bulk transition point. Specifically, we observed here a bulk-supported surface DPT for high field amplitudes h(0) and correspondingly short critical periods P(c), whereas this surface transition simultaneous to the bulk one is suppressed for slow critical dynamics occurring for low values of h(0). The suppression of the DPT for low h(0) not only occurs for the topmost surface layer, but also affects a significant number of subsurface layers. We find that the key physical quantity that explains this nonuniversal behavior is the time correlation between the dynamic surface and bulk magnetizations at the bulk critical point. This time correlation has to pass a threshold value to trigger a bulk-induced DPT in the surface layers. Otherwise, dynamic phasetransitions are absent at the surface in stark contrast to the equilibrium behavior of the corresponding thermodynamic Ising model. Also, we have analyzed the penetration depth of the dynamically ordered phase for the surface DPT that occurs for large J(s) values. Here we find that the penetration depth depends strongly on J(s) and behaves identically to the corresponding equilibrium Ising model. PMID:26172695

We study the spatiotemporal patterns resulting from different boundary conditions for a microscopic traffic model and contrast them with empirical results. By evaluating the time series of local measurements, the local traffic states are assigned to the different traffic phases of Kerner’s three-phase traffic theory. For this classification we use the rule-based FOTO-method, which provides ‘hard’ rules for this assignment. Using this approach, our analysis shows that the model is indeed able to reproduce three qualitatively different traffic phases: free flow (F), synchronized traffic (S), and wide moving jams (J). In addition, we investigate the likelihood of transitions between the three traffic phases. We show that a transition from free flow to a wide moving jam often involves an intermediate transition: first from free flow to synchronized flow and then from synchronized flow to a wide moving jam. This is supported by the fact that the so-called F → S transition (from free flow to synchronized traffic) is much more likely than a direct F → J transition. The model under consideration has a functional relationship between traffic flow and traffic density. The fundamental hypothesis of the three-phase traffic theory, however, postulates that the steady states of synchronized flow occupy a two-dimensional region in the flow-density plane. Due to the obvious discrepancy between the model investigated here and the postulate of the three-phase traffic theory, the good agreement that we found could not be expected. For a more detailed analysis, we also studied vehicle dynamics at a microscopic level and provide a comparison of real detector data with simulated data of the identical highway segment.

This paper uses the center difference scheme of Lax-Friedrichs to numerically solve a newly developed continuum traffic flow theory and the kinematic theory of Lighthill and Whitham, and Richards, and it studies the flow-concentration phasetransitions in flow containing both shock and rarefaction waves. A homogeneous road with finite length was modeled by both theories. Numerical simulations show that both theories yield nearly identical results for two representative Riemann problems--one has a shock solution and the other a rarefaction wave solution. Their phasetransition curves, however, are different: those derived from the new theory have two branches--one for acceleration flow and one for deceleration flow, whereas those derived from the LWR theory comprise a single curve--the equilibrium curve. The phasetransition curves in the shock case agree well with certain experimental observations but disagree with others. This disagreement may be resolved by studying transitions among nonequilibrium states, which awaits further development of a more accurate finite difference approximation of the nonequilibrium theory.

We present the phasetransition theory for sprite halo using measurable lightning parameters (charge moment and discharge time) on the basis of steady state thermodynamics. A halo is located at the upper part of the tree-like structure of a sprite and is produced through electron impact excitation of neutral species under the lightning-induced electric field. We proposed in our previous studies that the occurrence criteria for halos and sprites are characterized by the above lightning parameters, and additionally, the intensity of a halo weakens rapidly with an increase in the discharge time T. We assume that this phenomenon is quite similar to the phasetransition between the vapor and the liquid states of water; here the analogy is between the accelerated electrons and the water molecules. We demonstrate analytically a phasetransition for a simply modeled halo based on the quasistatic theory of lightning-induced electric field. Choosing the luminosity of a halo as an order parameter, we show that it has a dependence of T-0.25 - Tc-0.25 near the critical point Tc, which is characteristic of the phasetransition. Furthermore, the critical time scale Tc ≈ 5.5 ms is provided naturally from our modeling and is somewhat larger than the typical time scale of the halo luminosity in observations. We consider that this kind of formalism is useful in understanding the detailed relationship between lightning activity and occurrence of halos. We discuss this point for future observations along with the possibilities of the transition model of column and carrot structures.

Despite considerable interest in layered transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), such as M X2 with M =(Mo ,W ) and X =(S ,Se ,Te ) , the physical origin of their topological nature is still poorly understood. In the conventional view of topological phasetransition (TPT), the nontrivial topology of electron bands in TMDs is caused by the band inversion between metal d - and chalcogen p -orbital bands where the former is pulled down below the latter. Here, we show that, in TMDs, the TPT is entirely different from the conventional speculation. In particular, M S2 and M S e2 exhibits the opposite behavior of TPT such that the chalcogen p -orbital band moves down below the metal d -orbital band. More interestingly, in M T e2 , the band inversion occurs between the metal d -orbital bands. Our findings cast doubts on the common view of TPT and provide clear guidelines for understanding the topological nature in new topological materials to be discovered.

Despite considerable interests in transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs), such as MX2 with M = (Mo, W) and X = (S, Se, Te), the physical origin of their topological nature is still in its infancy. The conventional view of topological phasetransition (TPT) in TMDs is that the band inversion occurs between the metal d and chalcogen p orbital bands. More precisely, the former is pulled down below the latter. Here we introduce an explicit scheme for analyzing TPT in topological materials and find that the TPT in TMDs is different from the conventional speculation. When the 1T phase undergoes a structural transformation to the 1T' phase in monolayer MX2, the band topology changes from trivial to non-trivial, leading to the TPT. We discuss the exact role of the metal d and chalcogen p orbital bands during the TPT. Our finding would provide clear guidelines for understanding the topological nature not only in TMDs but also in other topological materials yet to be explored.

The aim of the present paper is to elucidate the transition from collective to random behavior exhibited by various mathematical models of bird flocking. In particular, we compare Vicsek's model [Vicsek et al., Phys. Rev. Lett. 75, 1226-1229 (1995)] with one based on topological considerations. The latter model is found to exhibit a first order phasetransition from flocking to decoherence, as the "noise parameter" of the problem is increased, whereas Vicsek's model gives a second order transition. Refining the topological model in such a way that birds are influenced mostly by the birds in front of them, less by the ones at their sides and not at all by those behind them (because they do not see them), we find a behavior that lies in between the two models. Finally, we propose a novel mechanism for preserving the flock's cohesion, without imposing artificial boundary conditions or attractive forces.

Leo Kadanoff taught us much about phasetransitions, turbulence and collective behavior. Here I explore the transition to turbulence in a pipe, showing how a collective mode determines the universality class. Near the transition, turbulent puffs decay either directly or through splitting, with characteristic time-scales that exhibit a super-exponential dependence on Reynolds number. Direct numerical simulations reveal that a collective mode, a so-called zonal flow emerges at large scales, activated by anisotropic turbulent fluctuations, as represented by Reynolds stress. This zonal flow imposes a shear on the turbulent fluctuations that tends to suppress their anisotropy, leading to a Landau theory of predator-prey type, in the directed percolation universality class. Stochastic simulations of this model reproduce the functional form and phenomenology of pipe flow experiments. Talk based on work performed with Hong-Yan Shih and Tsung-Lin Hsieh. This work was partially supported by the National Science Foundation through Grant NSF-DMR-1044901.

Equilibrium statistical physics is applied to the off-line training of layered neural networks with differentiable activation functions. A first analysis of soft-committee machines with an arbitrary number (K) of hidden units and continuous weights learning a perfectly matching rule is performed. Our results are exact in the limit of high training temperatures (β → 0). For K = 2 we find a second-order phasetransition from unspecialized to specialized student configurations at a critical size P of the training set, whereas for K >= 3 the transition is first order. The limit K → ∞ can be performed analytically, the transition occurs after presenting on the order of NK/β examples. However, an unspecialized metastable state persists up to P propto NK2/β.

In this work, we show that a large class of models with a composite dark sector undergo a strong first order phasetransition in the early Universe, which could lead to a detectable gravitational wave signal. We summarize the basic conditions for a strong first order phasetransition for SU(N) dark sectors with n_{f} flavors, calculate the gravitational wave spectrum and show that, depending on the dark confinement scale, it can be detected at eLISA or in pulsar timing array experiments. The gravitational wave signal provides a unique test of the gravitational interactions of a dark sector, and we discuss the complementarity with conventional searches for new dark sectors. The discussion includes the twin Higgs and strongly interacting massive particle models as well as symmetric and asymmetric composite dark matter scenarios. PMID:26565451

We present a combinatorial decision problem, inspired by the celebrated quiz show called Countdown, that involves the computation of a given target number T from a set of k randomly chosen integers along with a set of arithmetic operations. We find that the probability of winning the game evidences a threshold phenomenon that can be understood in the terms of an algorithmic phasetransition as a function of the set size k. Numerical simulations show that such probability sharply transitions from zero to one at some critical value of the control parameter, hence separating the algorithm's parameter space in different phases. We also find that the system is maximally efficient close to the critical point. We derive analytical expressions that match the numerical results for finite size and permit us to extrapolate the behavior in the thermodynamic limit. PMID:23005354

Nanostructured materials can be synthesized by utilizing the domain growth that accompanies first-order phase separation. Structural control can be achieved by appropriately selecting the quench depth and the quench time, but in order to do this in a mindful fashion one must understand the kinetics of domain growth. The authors have completed detailed light scattering studies of the evolution of structure in both temperature- and field-quenched phasetransitions in two and three dimensional systems. They have studied these systems in the quiescent state and in shear and have developed theoretical models that account for the experimental results.

The recent discovery of two-dimensional materials such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) has provided opportunities to develop ultimate thin channel devices. In contrast to graphene, the existence of moderate band gap and strong spin-orbit coupling gives rise to exotic electronic properties which vary with layer thickness, lattice structure, and symmetry. TMDs commonly appear in two structures with distinct symmetries, trigonal prismatic 2H and octahedral 1T phases which are semiconducting and metallic, respectively. In this work, we investigate the structural and electronic properties of monolayer molybdenum dichalcogenides (MoX2, where X = S, Se, Te) through first-principles density functional calculations. We find a tendency that the semiconducting 2H phase is more stable than the metallic 1T phase. We show that a spontaneous symmetry breaking of 1T phase leads to various distorted octahedral (1T') phases, thus inducing a metal-to-semiconductor transition. We discuss the effects of carrier doping on the structural stability and the modification of the electronic structure. This work was supported by the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) under Grant No. NRF-2005-0093845 and Samsung Science and Technology Foundation under Grant No. SSTFBA1401-08.

The Nowak modification of the Sznajd opinion dynamics model on the square lattice assumes that with probability β the opinions flip due to mass-media advertising from down to up, and vice versa. Besides, with probability α the Sznajd rule applies that a neighbour pair agreeing in its two opinions convinces all its six neighbours of that opinion. Our Monte Carlo simulations and mean-field theory find sharp phasetransitions in the parameter space.

We establish phasetransitions for certain classes of continuum Delaunay multi-type particle systems (continuum Potts models) with infinite range repulsive interaction between particles of different type. In one class of the Delaunay Potts models studied the repulsive interaction is a triangle (multi-body) interaction whereas in the second class the interaction is between pairs (edges) of the Delaunay graph. The result for the edge model is an extension of finite range results in Bertin et al. (J Stat Phys 114(1-2):79-100, 2004) for the Delaunay graph and in Georgii and Häggström (Commun Math Phys 181:507-528, 1996) for continuum Potts models to an infinite range repulsion decaying with the edge length. This is a proof of an old conjecture of Lebowitz and Lieb. The repulsive triangle interactions have infinite range as well and depend on the underlying geometry and thus are a first step towards studying phasetransitions for geometry-dependent multi-body systems. Our approach involves a Delaunay random-cluster representation analogous to the Fortuin-Kasteleyn representation of the Potts model. The phasetransitions manifest themselves in the percolation of the corresponding random-cluster model. Our proofs rely on recent studies (Dereudre et al. in Probab Theory Relat Fields 153:643-670, 2012) of Gibbs measures for geometry-dependent interactions.

We investigate a novel mechanism for phasetransitions that is a distinctive feature of higher-curvature gravity theories. For definiteness, we bound ourselves to the case of Lovelock gravities. These theories are known to have several branches of asymptotically anti-de Sitter solutions. Here, extending our previous work, we show that phasetransitions among some of these branches are driven by a thermalon configuration: a bubble separating two regions of different effective cosmological constants, generically hosting a black hole in the interior. Above some critical temperature, this thermalon configuration is preferred with respect to the finite-temperature anti-de Sitter space, triggering a sophisticated version of the Hawking-Page transition. After being created, the unstable bubble configuration can in general dynamically change the asymptotic cosmological constant. While this phenomenon already occurs in the case of a gravity action with square curvature terms, we point out that in the case of Lovelock theory with cubic (and higher) terms new effects appear. For instance, the theory may admit more than one type of bubble and branches that are in principle free of pathologies may also decay through the thermalon mechanism. We also find ranges of the gravitational couplings for which the theory becomes sick. These add up to previously found restrictions to impose tighter constraints on higher-curvature gravities. The results of this paper point to an intricate phase diagram which might accommodate similarly rich behavior in the dual conformal field theory side.

Temperature-dependent structural changes in planar bilayer membranes formed from glycerol monooleate (GMO) dispersed in various n-alkane solvents (C12-C17) have been studied using precise measurements of specific geometric capacitance (Cg). Cg generally increases as temperature (T) decreases. A change in the slope of Cg(T) occurs between 15 and 18 degrees C for all solvent systems examined. Measurements of the interfacial tension (gamma) of the bulk GMO-alkane dispersions against 0.1 M NaCl show that gamma generally decreases with decreasing temperature. The data can be fitted with two straight lines of different slope which intersect on the average at 17 degrees C. Pagano et al. (1973, Science (Wash. D.C.). 181:557) have shown using calorimetry that GMO has a phasetransition at about 15 degrees C. Thus, the changes in Cg and gamma with temperature are likely to result from a GMO phasetransition. A second structural change is observed to occur between 5 and 10 degrees C which has not been detected calorimetrically. Calculations of Cg based on various estimates of the hydrocarbon dielectric coefficient (epsilon-b) and/or hydrocarbon thickness (delta-b) leads to models for the structure of the bilayer above and below the phasetransition temperature. PMID:1111634

The amazing collective behaviors of active systems such as bird flocks, schools of fish, and colonies of microorganisms have long amazed scientists and laypeople alike. Understanding the physics of such systems is challenging due to their far-from-equilibrium dynamics, as well as the extreme diversity in their ingredients, relevant time- and length-scales, and emergent phenomenology. To make progress, one can categorize active systems by the symmetries of their constituent particles, as well as how activity is expressed. In this work, we examine two categories of active systems, and explore their phase behavior in detail. First, we study systems of self-propelled spherical particles moving in two dimensions. Despite the absence of an aligning interaction, this system displays complex emergent dynamics, including phase separation into a dense active solid and dilute gas. Using simulations and analytic modeling, we quantify the phase diagram and separation kinetics. We show that this nonequilibrium phasetransition is analogous to an equilibrium vapor-liquid system, with binodal and spinodal curves and a critical point. We also characterize the dense active solid phase, a unique material which exhibits the structural signatures of a crystalline solid near the crystal-hexatic transition point, as well as anomalous dynamics including superdiffusive motion on intermediate timescales. We also explore the role of interparticle attraction in this system. We demonstrate that attraction drastically changes the phase diagram, which contains two distinct phase-separated regions and is reentrant as a function of propulsion speed. We interpret this complex situation with a simple kinetic model, which builds from the observed microdynamics of individual particles to a full description of the macroscopic phase behavior. We also study active nematics, liquid crystals driven out of equilibrium by energy-dissipating active stresses. The equilibrium nematic state is unstable in these

A network as a substrate for dynamic processes may have its own dynamics. We propose a model for networks which evolve together with diffusing particles through a coupled dynamics and investigate emerging structural property. The model consists of an undirected weighted network of fixed mean degree and randomly diffusing particles of fixed density. The weight w of an edge increases by the amount of traffics through its connecting nodes or decreases by a constant factor. Edges are removed with the probability P(rew)=1/(1+w) and replaced by new ones having w=0 at random locations. We find that the model exhibits a structural phasetransition between the homogeneous phase characterized by an exponentially decaying degree distribution and the heterogeneous phase characterized by the presence of hubs. The hubs emerge as a consequence of a positive feedback between the particle and the edge dynamics. PMID:19792212

Intracellular organelles are either membrane-bound vesicles or membrane-less compartments that are made up of proteins and RNA. These organelles play key biological roles, by compartmentalizing the cell to enable spatiotemporal control of biological reactions. Recent studies suggest that membrane-less intracellular compartments are multicomponent viscous liquid droplets that form via phase separation. Proteins that have an intrinsic tendency for being conformationally heterogeneous seem to be the main drivers of liquid-liquid phase separation in the cell. These findings highlight the relevance of classical concepts from the physics of polymeric phasetransitions for understanding the assembly of intracellular membrane-less compartments. However, applying these concepts is challenging, given the heteropolymeric nature of protein sequences, the complex intracellular environment, and non-equilibrium features intrinsic to cells. This provides new opportunities for adapting established theories and for the emergence of new physics.

The heat-induced phasetransitions of ɛ-HNIW, both neat and coated with various additives used in plastic bonded explosives, were investigated using powder X-ray diffraction and differential scanning calorimetry. It was found that ɛ-HNIW, after being held at 70°C for 60h, remained in the ɛ-phase. Applying other conditions, various phasetransition parameters were determined, including Tc (the critical phasetransition temperature), T50 (the temperature at which 50% of the phasetransition is complete) and T180 (the percentage of γ-HNIW present in samples heated to 180°C). According to the above three parameters, additives were divided into three categories: those that delay phasetransition, those that raise the critical temperature and the transition rate, and those that promote the phasetransition. Based on the above data, a phasetransition mechanism is proposed.

A general introduction to the non-zero temperature dynamic and transport properties of low-dimensional systems near a quantum phasetransition shall be presented. Basic results will be reviewed in the context of experiments on the spin-ladder compounds. Recent large N computations (M. Vojta and S. Sachdev, Phys. Rev. Lett. 83), 3916 (1999) on an extended t-J model motivate a global scenario of the quantum phases and transitions in the high temperature superconductors, and connections will be made to numerous experiments. A universal theory (S. Sachdev, C. Buragohain, and M. Vojta, Science, in press M. Vojta, C. Buragohain, and S. Sachdev, cond- mat/9912020) of quantum impurities in spin-gap antiferromagnets near a magnetic ordering transition will be compared quantitatively to experiments on Zn doped Y Ba2 Cu3 O7 (Fong et al.), Phys. Rev. Lett. 82, 1939 (1999)

A number of application concepts have emerged based on the idea that a phasetransition thin film such as vanadium dioxide provides a high resolution, two-dimensional format for switching, recording, and processing optical signals. These applications range from high density optical disk recording systems and optical data processing to laser protection devices, infrared FLIRS and seekers, laser radar systems and IR scene simulators. All application candidates have a potential for providing either a totally new capability, an improved performance, a lower cost, or combinations of the three. Probably of greatest significance is the emergence of agile sensor concepts arising out of some of the film's special properties. These are represented by the above FLIRs, seekers and laser radar systems. A three year research program has been completed to advance the state-of-the-art in the preparation and characterization of selected thin film phasetransition materials. The objectives of the program were: (1) to expand the data base and improve operational characteristics of Vought prepared vanadium dioxide thin films, (2) to evolve process chemistry and subsequently characterize several new program materials, including rare-earth chalcogenides, organic semiconductor charge complexes, alloys of transition metal oxides, and metal-insulator cermets, and (3) to spin-off new applications and concepts.

The transition to chaotic phase synchronization for a periodically driven spiral-type chaotic oscillator is known to involve a dense set of saddle-node bifurcations. By following the synchronization transition through the cascade of period-doubling bifurcations in a forced Rössler system, this paper describes how these saddle-node bifurcations arise and how their characteristic cyclic organisation develops. We identify the cycles that are involved in the various saddle-node bifurcations and descibe how the formation of multi-layered resonance cycles in the synchronization domain is related to the torus doubling bifurcations that take place outside this domain. By examining a physiology-based model of the blood flow regulation to the individual functional unit (nephron) of the kidney we demonstrate how a similar bifurcation structure may arise in this system as a response to a periodically varying arterial blood pressure. The paper finally discusses how an alternative transition to chaotic phase synchronization may occur in the mutual synchronization of two chaotically oscillating period-doubling systems.

One particular characteristic observed in unsteady shear layers is the phase shift relative to the main flow. In attached boundary layers this will have an effect both on the instantaneous skin friction and heat transfer. In separation bubbles the contribution to the drag is dominated by the pressure distribution. However, the most significant effect appears to be the phase shift on the transition process. Unsteady transition behaviour may determine the bursting of the bubble resulting in an un-recoverable full separation. An early analysis of the phase shift was performed by Stokes for the incompressible boundary layer of an oscillating wall and an oscillating main flow. An amplitude overshoot within the shear layer as well as a phase shift were observed that can be attributed to the relatively slow diffusion of viscous stresses compared to the fast change of pressure. Experiments in a low speed facility with the boundary layer of a flat plate were evaluated in respect to phase shift. A pressure distribution similar to that on the suction surface of a turbomachinery aerofoil was superimposed generating a typical transitional separation bubble. A periodically unsteady main flow in the suction type wind tunnel was introduced via a rotating flap downstream of the test section. The experiments covered a range of the three similarity parameters of momentum-loss-thickness Reynolds-number of 92 to 226 and Strouhal-number (reduced frequency) of 0.0001 to 0.0004 at the separation point, and an amplitude range up to 19 %. The free stream turbulence level was less than 1% .Upstream of the separation point the phase shift in the laminar boundary layer does not appear to be affected significantly bay either of the three parameters. The trend perpendicular to the wall is similar to the Stokes analysis. The problem scales well with the wave velocity introduced by Stokes, however, the lag of the main flow near the wall is less than indicated analytically. The separation point

Many optimization problems that arise in multi-target tracking and fusion applications are known to be NP-complete, ie, believed to have worst-case complexities that are exponential in problem size. Recently, many such NP-complete problems have been shown to display threshold phenomena: it is possible to define a parameter such that the probability of a random problem instance having a solution jumps from 1 to 0 at a specific value of the parameter. It is also found that the amount of resources needed to solve the problem instance peaks at the transition point. Among the problems found to display this behavior are graph coloring (aka clustering, relevant for multi-target tracking), satisfiability (which occurs in resource allocation and planning problem), and the travelling salesperson problem. Physicists studying these problems have found intriguing similarities to phasetransitions in spin models of statistical mechanics. Many methods previously used to analyze spin glasses have been used to explain some of the properties of the behavior at the transition point. It turns out that the transition happens because the fitness landscape of the problem changes as the parameter is varied. Some algorithms have been introduced that exploit this knowledge of the structure of the fitness landscape. In this paper, we review some of the experimental and theoretical work on threshold phenomena in optimization problems and indicate how optimization problems from tracking and sensor resource allocation could be analyzed using these results.

We critically examine a model that attempts to explain the emergence of power laws (e.g., Zipf's law) in human language. The model is based on the principle of least effort in communications—specifically, the overall effort is balanced between the speaker effort and listener effort, with some trade-off. It has been shown that an information-theoretic interpretation of this principle is sufficiently rich to explain the emergence of Zipf's law in the vicinity of the transition between referentially useless systems (one signal for all referable objects) and indexical reference systems (one signal per object). The phasetransition is defined in the space of communication accuracy (information content) expressed in terms of the trade-off parameter. Our study explicitly solves the continuous optimization problem, subsuming a recent, more specific result obtained within a discrete space. The obtained results contrast Zipf's law found by heuristic search (that attained only local minima) in the vicinity of the transition between referentially useless systems and indexical reference systems, with an inverse-factorial (sub-logarithmic) law found at the transition that corresponds to global minima. The inverse-factorial law is observed to be the most representative frequency distribution among optimal solutions.

The Dirac Hamiltonian, which successfully describes relativistic fermions, applies equally well to electrons in solids with linear energy dispersion, for example, in bismuth and graphene. A characteristic of these materials is that a magnetic field less than 10 tesla suffices to force the Dirac electrons into the lowest Landau level, with resultant strong enhancement of the Coulomb interaction energy. Moreover, the Dirac electrons usually come with multiple flavors or valley degeneracy. These ingredients favor transitions to a collective state with novel quantum properties in large field. By using torque magnetometry, we have investigated the magnetization of bismuth to fields of 31 tesla. We report the observation of sharp field-induced phasetransitions into a state with striking magnetic anisotropy, consistent with the breaking of the threefold valley degeneracy. PMID:18653888

The nucleus is described as an open many-body quantum system with a non-Hermitian Hamilton operator the eigenvalues of which are complex, in general. The eigenvalues may cross in the complex plane (exceptional points), the phases of the eigenfunctions are not rigid in approaching the crossing points and the widths bifurcate. By varying only one parameter, the eigenvalue trajectories usually avoid crossing and width bifurcation occurs at the critical value of avoided crossing. An analog spectroscopic redistribution takes place for discrete states below the particle decay threshold. By this means, a dynamical phasetransition occurs in the many-level system starting at a critical value of the level density. Hence the properties of the low-lying nuclear states (described well by the shell model) and those of highly excited nuclear states (described by random ensembles) differ fundamentally from one another. The statement of Niels Bohr on the collective features of compound nucleus states at high level density is therefore not in contradiction to the shell-model description of nuclear (and atomic) states at low level density. Dynamical phasetransitions are observed experimentally in different quantum mechanical systems by varying one or two parameters.

Topological phasetransition is accompanied with a change of topological numbers. According to the bulk-edge correspondence, the gap closing and the breakdown of the adiabaticity are necessary at the phasetransition point to make the topological number ill-defined. However, the gap closing is not always needed. In this paper, we show that two topological distinct phases can be continuously connected without gap closing, provided the symmetry of the system changes during the process. Here we propose the generic principles how this is possible by demonstrating various examples such as 1D polyacetylene with the charge-density-wave order, 2D silicene with the antiferromagnetic order, 2D silicene or quantum well made of HgTe with superconducting proximity effects and 3D superconductor Cu doped Bi2Se3. It is argued that such an unusual phenomenon can occur when we detour around the gap closing point provided the connection of the topological numbers is lost along the detour path. PMID:24071900

The Cornwall-Jackiw-Tomboulis (CJT) effective action approach is applied to study the phasetransition of nuclear matter modeled by the four-nucleon interaction. It is shown that in the Hartree-Fock approximation (HFA) a first-order phasetransition takes place at low temperature, whereas the phasetransition is of second order at higher temperature.

It is demonstrated that under common conditions a molecular solid subject to Jahn-Teller interactions supports stable Q-ball-like nontopological solitons. Such solitons represent a localized lump of excess electric charge in periodic motion accompanied by a time-dependent shape distortion of a set of adjacent molecules. The motion of the distortion can correspond to a true rotation or to a pseudorotation about the symmetric shape configuration. These solitons are stable for Jahn-Teller coupling strengths below a critical value; however, as the Jahn-Teller coupling approaches this critical value, the size of the soliton diverges signaling an incipient structural phasetransition. The soliton phase mimics features commonly attributed to phase separation in complex solids. PMID:16486846

It is demonstrated that under common conditions a molecular solid subject to Jahn-Teller interactions supports stable Q-ball-like nontopological solitons. Such solitons represent a localized lump of excess electric charge in periodic motion accompanied by a time-dependent shape distortion of a set of adjacent molecules. The motion of the distortion can correspond to a true rotation or to a pseudorotation about the symmetric shape configuration. These solitons are stable for Jahn-Teller coupling strengths below a critical value; however, as the Jahn-Teller coupling approaches this critical value, the size of the soliton diverges signaling an incipient structural phasetransition. The soliton phase mimics features commonly attributed to phase separation in complex solids.

We explore the dynamical symmetries of the shell model number conserving algebra, which define three types of pairing and quadrupole phases, with the aim to obtain the prevailing phase or phasetransition for the real nuclear systems in a single shell. This is achieved by establishing a correspondence between each of the pairing bases with the Elliott's SU(3) basis that describes collective rotation of nuclear systems. This allows for a complete classification of the basis states of different number of particles in all the limiting cases. The probability distribution of the SU(3) basis states within theirs corresponding pairing states is also obtained. The relative strengths of dynamically symmetric quadrupole-quadrupole interaction in respect to the isoscalar, isovector and total pairing interactions define a control parameter, which estimates the importance of each term of the Hamiltonian in the correct reproduction of the experimental data for the considered nuclei.

A model of the collective behavior of a large number of locally acting organisms is proposed. The model is intended to be realistic, but turns out to fit naturally into the category of connectionist models, Like all connectionist models, its properties can be divided into the categories of structure, dynamics, and learning. The space in which the organisms move is discretized, and is modeled by a lattice of nodes, or cells. Each cell hag a specified volume, and is connected to other cells in the space in a definite way. Organisms move probabilistically between local cells in this space, but with weights dependent on local morphogenic substances, or morphogens. The morphogens are in turn are effected by the passage of an organism. The evolution of the morphogens, and the corresponding constitutes of the organisms constitutes the collective behavior of the group. The generic properties of such systems are analyzed, and a number of results are obtained. The model has various types of phasetransitions and self-organizing properties controlled both by the level of the noise, and other parameters. It is hoped that the present mode; might serve as a paradigmatic example of a complex cooperative system in nature. In particular this model can be used to explore the relation of phasetransitions to at least three important issues encountered in artificial life. Firstly, that of emergence as complex adaptive behavior. Secondly, as an exploration of second order phasetransitions in biological systems. Lastly, to derive behavioral criteria for the evolution of collective behavior in social organisms. The model is then applied to the specific case of ants moving on a lattice. The local behavior of the ants is inspired by the actual behavior observed in the laboratory, and analytic results for the collective behavior are compared to the corresponding laboratory results. Monte carlo simulations are used as illustrations.

A model of the collective behavior of a large number of locally acting organisms is proposed. The model is intended to be realistic, but turns out to fit naturally into the category of connectionist models, Like all connectionist models, its properties can be divided into the categories of structure, dynamics, and learning. The space in which the organisms move is discretized, and is modeled by a lattice of nodes, or cells. Each cell hag a specified volume, and is connected to other cells in the space in a definite way. Organisms move probabilistically between local cells in this space, but with weights dependent on local morphogenic substances, or morphogens. The morphogens are in turn are effected by the passage of an organism. The evolution of the morphogens, and the corresponding constitutes of the organisms constitutes the collective behavior of the group. The generic properties of such systems are analyzed, and a number of results are obtained. The model has various types of phasetransitions and self-organizing properties controlled both by the level of the noise, and other parameters. It is hoped that the present mode; might serve as a paradigmatic example of a complex cooperative system in nature. In particular this model can be used to explore the relation of phasetransitions to at least three important issues encountered in artificial life. Firstly, that of emergence as complex adaptive behavior. Secondly, as an exploration of second order phasetransitions in biological systems. Lastly, to derive behavioral criteria for the evolution of collective behavior in social organisms. The model is then applied to the specific case of ants moving on a lattice. The local behavior of the ants is inspired by the actual behavior observed in the laboratory, and analytic results for the collective behavior are compared to the corresponding laboratory results. Monte carlo simulations are used as illustrations.

Metamictization is the transition from the crystalline to an aperiodic or amorphous state due to alpha-decay event damage from constituent radionuclides ({sup 238}U, {sup 235}U, and {sup 232}Th) and their daughters. However, this transformation in minerals is part of a larger class of radiation-induced transformations to the amorphous state that has received considerable recent attention as a result of ion- and electron-beam experiments on metals, intermetallics, simple oxides, and complex ceramics and minerals. Diffuse X-ray scattering from single crystals of metamict zircon reveals residual crystallinity even at high fluences (up to 7.2 {times} 10{sup 18} {alpha}-decay events/g). The experimental evidence does not suggest that radiation-induced amorphization is a phasetransition. The observations are in good agreement with a nonconvergent, heterogeneous model of amorphization in which damage production is a random process of cascade formation and overlap at increasing fluence. Instead of an amorphization transition, the existence of a percolation transition is postulated. At the level of radiation damage near the percolation point, the heterogeneous strain broadening of X-ray diffraction profiles is reduced whereas the particle-size broadening increases. Simultaneously, the macroscopic swelling of the zircon becomes larger than the maximum expansion of the unit-cell parameters. A suitable empirical parameter that characterizes this transition is the flux, D{sub s}, at which the macroscopic expansion is identical to the maximum expansion of the crystallographic unit cell. In zircon, D{sub s} = 3.5{center_dot}10{sup 18} {alpha}-decay events/g.

We present analytical results for long-term growth rates of structured populations in randomly fluctuating environments, which we apply to predict how cellular response networks evolve. We show that networks which respond rapidly to a stimulus will evolve phenotypic memory exclusively under random (i.e., nonperiodic) environments. We identify the evolutionary phase diagram for simple response networks, which we show can exhibit both continuous and discontinuous transitions. Our approach enables exact analysis of diverse evolutionary systems, from viral epidemics to emergence of drug resistance. PMID:27472146

We present analytical results for long-term growth rates of structured populations in randomly fluctuating environments, which we apply to predict how cellular response networks evolve. We show that networks which respond rapidly to a stimulus will evolve phenotypic memory exclusively under random (i.e., nonperiodic) environments. We identify the evolutionary phase diagram for simple response networks, which we show can exhibit both continuous and discontinuous transitions. Our approach enables exact analysis of diverse evolutionary systems, from viral epidemics to emergence of drug resistance.

The electronic dispersion of a graphene bilayer is highly dependent on rotational mismatch between layers and can be further manipulated by electrical gating. This allows for an unprecedented control over electronic properties and opens up the possibility of flexible band structure engineering. Here we present novel magnetotransport data in a twisted bilayer, crossing the energetic border between decoupled monolayers and coupled bilayer. In addition a transition in Berry phase between π and 2π is observed at intermediate magnetic fields. Analysis of Fermi velocities and gate induced charge carrier densities suggests an important role of strong layer asymmetry for the observed phenomena.

We study the connections between local quantum coherence (LQC) based on Wigner-Yanase skew information and quantum phasetransitions (QPTs). When applied on the one-dimensional Hubbard, XY spin chain with three-spin interaction, and Su-Schrieffer-Heeger models, the LQC and its derivatives are used successfully to detect different types of QPTs in these spin and fermionic systems. Furthermore, the LQC is effective as the quantum discord (QD) in detecting QPTs at finite temperatures, where the entanglement has lost its effectiveness. We also demonstrate that the LQC can exhibit different behaviors in many forms compared with the QD. PMID:27193057

We investigate quantum phasetransitions in which a change in the type of entanglement from bound entanglement to either free entanglement or separability may occur. In particular, we present a theoretical method to construct a class of quantum spin-chain Hamiltonians that exhibit this type of quantum criticality. Given parameter-dependent two-site reduced density matrices (with prescribed entanglement properties), we lay out a reverse construction for a compatible pure state for the whole system, as well as a class of Hamiltonians for which this pure state is a ground state. This construction is illustrated through several examples.

We study the connections between local quantum coherence (LQC) based on Wigner-Yanase skew information and quantum phasetransitions (QPTs). When applied on the one-dimensional Hubbard, XY spin chain with three-spin interaction, and Su-Schrieffer-Heeger models, the LQC and its derivatives are used successfully to detect different types of QPTs in these spin and fermionic systems. Furthermore, the LQC is effective as the quantum discord (QD) in detecting QPTs at finite temperatures, where the entanglement has lost its effectiveness. We also demonstrate that the LQC can exhibit different behaviors in many forms compared with the QD.

We study the connections between local quantum coherence (LQC) based on Wigner-Yanase skew information and quantum phasetransitions (QPTs). When applied on the one-dimensional Hubbard, XY spin chain with three-spin interaction, and Su-Schrieffer-Heeger models, the LQC and its derivatives are used successfully to detect different types of QPTs in these spin and fermionic systems. Furthermore, the LQC is effective as the quantum discord (QD) in detecting QPTs at finite temperatures, where the entanglement has lost its effectiveness. We also demonstrate that the LQC can exhibit different behaviors in many forms compared with the QD. PMID:27193057

metric to 16S rRNA metagenomic studies of 6 vertebrate gastrointestinal microbiomes and find that they assembled through a highly non-neutral process. I then consider a phasetransition that may occur in nutrient-poor environments such as ocean surface waters. In these systems, I find that the experimentally observed genome streamlining, specialization and opportunism may well be generic statistical phenomena.

We study numerically a lattice model of semiflexible homopolymers with nearest neighbor (nn) attraction and energetic preference for straight joints between bonded monomers. For this we use a new Monte Carlo algorithm, the “prunedenriched Rosenbluth Method” (PERM). It is very efficient both for relatively open configurations at high temperatures and for compact and frozen-in low- T states. This allows us to study in detail the phase diagram as a function of nn attraction ɛ and stiffness x. It shows a θ-collapse line with a transition from open coils (small ɛ) to molten compact globules (large ɛ) and a freezing transition toward a state with orientational global order (large stiffness x). Qualitatively this is similar to a recently studied mean-field theory [S. Doniach, T. Garel, and H. Orland (1996), J. Chem. Phys. 105(4), 1601], but there are important differences in details. In contrast to the mean-field theory and to naive expectations, the θ-temperature increases with stiffness x. The freezing temperature increases even faster, and reaches the θ-line at a finite value of x. For even stiffer chains, the freezing transition takes place directly, without the formation of an intermediate globular state. Although being in conflict with mean-field theory, the latter had been conjectured already by Doniach et al. on the basis of heuristic arguments and of low-statistics Monte Carlo simulations. Finally, we discuss the relevance of the present model as a very crude model for protein folding.

In his pioneering work on negative specific heat, Walter Thirring introduced a model that is solvable in the microcanonical ensemble. Here, we give a complete description of the phase-diagram of this model in both the microcanonical and the canonical ensemble, highlighting the main features of ensemble inequivalence. In both ensembles, we find a line of first-order phasetransitions which ends in a critical point. However, neither the line nor the point have the same location in the phase-diagram of the two ensembles. We also show that the microcanonical and canonical critical points can be analytically related to each other using a Landau expansion of entropy and free energy, respectively, in analogy with what has been done in (Cohen and Mukamel 2012 J. Stat. Mech. P12017). Examples of systems with certain symmetries restricting the Landau expansion have been considered in this reference, while no such restrictions are present in Thirring’s model. This leads to a phase diagram that can be seen as a prototype for what happens in systems of particles with kinematic degrees of freedom dominated by long-range interactions.

impurities (or doping) allows further control over the electrical and optical properties of nanocrystals. However, while impurity doping in bulk semiconductors is now routine, doping of nanocrystals remains challenging. In particular, evidence for electronic doping, in which additional electrical carriers are introduced into the nanocrystals, has been very limited. Here, we adopt a new approach to electronic doping of nanocrystals. We utilize a partial cation exchange to introduce silver impurities into cadmium selenide (CdSe) and lead selenide (PbSe) nanocrystals. Results indicate that the silver-doped CdSe nanocrystals show a significant increase in fluorescence intensity, as compared to pure CdSe nanocrystals. We also observe a switching from n- to p-type doping in the silver-doped CdSe nanocrystals with increased silver amounts. Moreover, the silver-doping results in a change in the conductance of both PbSe and CdSe nanocrystals and the magnitude of this change depends on the amount of silver incorporated into the nanocrystals. In the bulk, silver chalcogenides (Ag2E, E=S, Se, and Te) possess a wide array of intriguing properties, including superionic conductivity. In addition, they undergo a reversible temperature-dependent phasetransition which induces significant changes in their electronic and ionic properties. While most of these properties have been examined extensively in bulk, very few studies have been conducted at the nanoscale. We have recently developed a versatile synthesis that yields colloidal silver chalcogenide nanocrystals. Here, we study the size dependence of their phase-transition temperatures. We utilize differential scanning calorimetry and in-situ X-ray diffraction analyses to observe the phasetransition in nanocrystal assemblies. We observe a significant deviation from the bulk alpha (low-temperature) to beta (high-temperature) phase-transition temperature when we reduce their size to a few nanometers. Hence, these nanocrystals provide great

We study the generation of gravitational waves in the electroweak phasetransition. We consider a few extensions of the Standard Model, namely, the addition of scalar singlets, the minimal supersymmetric extension, and the addition of TeV fermions. For each model we consider the complete dynamics of the phasetransition. In particular, we estimate the friction force acting on bubble walls, and we take into account the fact that they can propagate either as detonations or as deflagrations preceded by shock fronts, or they can run away. We compute the peak frequency and peak intensity of the gravitational radiation generated by bubble collisions and turbulence. We discuss the detectability by proposed spaceborne detectors. For the models we considered, runaway walls require significant fine tuning of the parameters, and the gravitational wave signal from bubble collisions is generally much weaker than that from turbulence. Although the predicted signal is in most cases rather low for the sensitivity of LISA, models with strongly coupled extra scalars reach this sensitivity for frequencies f ∼ 10{sup −4} Hz, and give intensities as high as h{sup 2}Ω{sub GW} ∼ 10{sup −8}.

We study the generation of gravitational waves in the electroweak phasetransition. We consider a few extensions of the Standard Model, namely, the addition of scalar singlets, the minimal supersymmetric extension, and the addition of TeV fermions. For each model we consider the complete dynamics of the phasetransition. In particular, we estimate the friction force acting on bubble walls, and we take into account the fact that they can propagate either as detonations or as deflagrations preceded by shock fronts, or they can run away. We compute the peak frequency and peak intensity of the gravitational radiation generated by bubble collisions and turbulence. We discuss the detectability by proposed spaceborne detectors. For the models we considered, runaway walls require significant fine tuning of the parameters, and the gravitational wave signal from bubble collisions is generally much weaker than that from turbulence. Although the predicted signal is in most cases rather low for the sensitivity of LISA, models with strongly coupled extra scalars reach this sensitivity for frequencies f ~ 10-4 Hz, and give intensities as high as h2ΩGW ~ 10-8.

Percolation describes the sudden emergence of large-scale connectivity as edges are added to a lattice or random network. In the Bohman-Frieze-Wormald model (BFW) of percolation, edges sampled from a random graph are considered individually and either added to the graph or rejected provided that the fraction of accepted edges is never smaller than a decreasing function with asymptotic value of α, a constant. The BFW process has been studied as a model system for investigating the underlying mechanisms leading to discontinuous phasetransitions in percolation. Here we focus on the regime α∈[0.6,0.95] where it is known that only one giant component, denoted C1, initially appears at the discontinuous phasetransition. We show that at some point in the supercritical regime C1 stops growing and eventually a second giant component, denoted C2, emerges in a continuous percolation transition. The delay between the emergence of C1 and C2 and their asymptotic sizes both depend on the value of α and we establish by several techniques that there exists a bifurcation point αc=0.763±0.002. For α∈[0.6,αc), C1 stops growing the instant it emerges and the delay between the emergence of C1 and C2 decreases with increasing α. For α∈(αc,0.95], in contrast, C1 continues growing into the supercritical regime and the delay between the emergence of C1 and C2 increases with increasing α. As we show, αc marks the minimal delay possible between the emergence of C1 and C2 (i.e., the smallest edge density for which C2 can exist). We also establish many features of the continuous percolation of C2 including scaling exponents and relations.

We discovered a dynamic phasetransition induced by sexual reproduction. The dynamics is a pure Darwinian rule applied to diploid bit-strings with both fundamental ingredients to drive Darwin's evolution: (1) random mutations and crossings which act in the sense of increasing the entropy (or diversity); and (2) selection which acts in the opposite sense by limiting the entropy explosion. Selection wins this competition if mutations performed at birth are few enough, and thus the wild genotype dominates the steady-state population. By slowly increasing the average number m of mutations, however, the population suddenly undergoes a mutational degradation precisely at a transition point mc. Above this point, the “bad” alleles (represented by 1-bits) spread over the genetic pool of the population, overcoming the selection pressure. Individuals become selectively alike, and evolution stops. Only below this point, m < mc, evolutionary life is possible. The finite-size-scaling behaviour of this transition is exhibited for large enough “chromosome” lengths L, through lengthy computer simulations. One important and surprising observation is the L-independence of the transition curves, for large L. They are also independent on the population size. Another is that mc is near unity, i.e. life cannot be stable with much more than one mutation per diploid genome, independent of the chromosome length, in agreement with reality. One possible consequence is that an eventual evolutionary jump towards larger L enabling the storage of more genetic information would demand an improved DNA copying machinery in order to keep the same total number of mutations per offspring.

Weyl semimetals are semimetals with nondegenerate 3D Dirac cones in the bulk. We showed that in a transition between different Z2 topological phases, i.e. between the normal insulator (NI) and topological insulator (TI), the Weyl semimetal phase necessarily appears when inversion symmetry is broken. In the presentation we show that this scenario holds for materials with any space groups without inversion symmetry. Namely, let us take any band insulator without inversion symmetry, and assume that the gap is closed by a change of an external parameter. In such cases we found that the system runs either into (i) a Weyl semimetal or (ii) a nodal-line semimetal, but no insulator-to-insulator transition happens. This is confirmed by classifying the gap closing in terms of the space groups and the wavevector. In the case (i), the number of Weyl nodes produced at the gap closing ranges from 2 to 12 depending on the symmetry. In (ii) the nodal line is protected by mirror symmetry. In the presentation, we explain some Weyl semimetal and nodal-line semimetals which we find by using this classification. As an example, we explain our result on ab initio calculation on tellurium (Te). Tellurium consists of helical chains, and therefore lacks inversion and mirror symmetries. At high pressure the band gap of Te decreases and finally it runs into a Weyl semimetal phase, as confirmed by our ab initio calculation. In such chiral systems as tellurium, we also theoretically propose chiral transport in systems with such helical structures; namely, an orbital magnetization is induced by a current along the chiral axis, in analogy with a solenoid.

We review our recent work on quantum phasetransitions in frustrated magnetic systems. In the first part a Pseudo Fermion Functional Renormalization Group (PFFRG) method is presented. By using an exact representation of spin 1/2 operators in terms of pseudofermions a quantum spin Hamiltonian may be mapped onto an interacting fermion system. For the latter an FRG treatment is employed. The results for the J1-J2 model and similar models of frustrated interaction show phase diagrams in agreement with those obtained by other methods, but give more detailed information on the nature of correlations, in particular in the non-magnetic phases. Applications of PFFRG to geometrically frustrated systems and to highly anisotropic Kitaev type models are also reported. In the second part the derivation of quantum spin models from the microscopic many-body Hamiltonian is discussed. The results for multiband systems with strong spin-orbit interaction encountered in the iridates class of compounds are shown to resolve some of the questions posed by experiment.

The title of the workshop, ''The QCD PhaseTransitions'', in fact happened to be too narrow for its real contents. It would be more accurate to say that it was devoted to different phases of QCD and QCD-related gauge theories, with strong emphasis on discussion of the underlying non-perturbative mechanisms which manifest themselves as all those phases. Before we go to specifics, let us emphasize one important aspect of the present status of non-perturbative Quantum Field Theory in general. It remains true that its studies do not get attention proportional to the intellectual challenge they deserve, and that the theorists working on it remain very fragmented. The efforts to create Theory of Everything including Quantum Gravity have attracted the lion share of attention and young talent. Nevertheless, in the last few years there was also a tremendous progress and even some shift of attention toward emphasis on the unity of non-perturbative phenomena. For example, we have seen some. efforts to connect the lessons from recent progress in Supersymmetric theories with that in QCD, as derived from phenomenology and lattice. Another example is Maldacena conjecture and related development, which connect three things together, string theory, super-gravity and the (N=4) supersymmetric gauge theory. Although the progress mentioned is remarkable by itself, if we would listen to each other more we may have chance to strengthen the field and reach better understanding of the spectacular non-perturbative physics.

Geological calcium carbonate exists in both crystalline phases and amorphous phases. Compared with crystalline calcium carbonate, such as calcite, aragonite and vaterite, the amorphous calcium carbonate (ACC) is unstable. Unlike geological calcium carbonate crystals, crystalline sea urchin spicules (99.9 wt % calcium carbonate and 0.1 wt % proteins) do not present facets. To explain this property, crystal formation via amorphous precursors was proposed in theory. And previous research reported experimental evidence of ACC on the surface of forming sea urchin spicules. By using X-ray absorption near-edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy and photoelectron emission microscopy (PEEM), we studied cross-sections of fresh sea urchin spicules at different stages (36h, 48h and 72h after fertilization) and observed the transition sequence of three mineral phases: hydrated ACC → dehydrated ACC → biogenic calcite. In addition, we unexpectedly found hydrated ACC nanoparticles that are surrounded by biogenic calcite. This observation indicates the dehydration from hydrated ACC to dehydrated ACC is inhibited, resulting in stabilization of hydrated ACC nanoparticles. We thought that the dehydration was inhibited by protein matrix components occluded within the biomineral, and we designed an in vitro assay to test the hypothesis. By utilizing XANES-PEEM, we found that SM50, the most abundant occluded matrix protein in sea urchin spicules, has the function to stabilize hydrated ACC in vitro.

In this study we simulate an interaction of femtosecond laser pulses (100 fs, 800 nm, 0.1-10 J/cm 2) with metal targets of Al, Au, Cu, and Ni. For analysis of laser-induced phasetransitions, melting and shock waves propagation as well as material decomposition we use an Eulerian hydrocode in conjunction with a thermodynamically complete two-temperature equation of state with stable and metastable phases. Isochoric heating, material evaporation from the free surface of the target and fast propagation of the melting and shock waves are observed. On rarefaction the liquid phase becomes metastable and its lifetime is estimated using the theory of homogeneous nucleation. Mechanical spallation of the target material at high strain rates is also possible as a result of void growth and confluence. In our simulation several ablation mechanisms are taken into account but the main issue of the material is found to originate from the metastable liquid state. It can be decomposed either into a liquid-gas mixture in the vicinity of the critical point, or into droplets at high strain rates and negative pressure. The simulation results are in agreement with available experimental findings.

Topologically ordered systems are characterized by topological invariants that are often calculated from the momentum space integration of a certain function that represents the curvature of the many-body state. The curvature function may be Berry curvature, Berry connection, or other quantities depending on the system. Akin to stretching a messy string to reveal the number of knots it contains, a scaling procedure is proposed for the curvature function in inversion symmetric systems, from which the topological phasetransition can be identified from the flow of the driving energy parameters that control the topology (hopping, chemical potential, etc) under scaling. At an infinitesimal operation, one obtains the renormalization group (RG) equations for the driving energy parameters. A length scale defined from the curvature function near the gap-closing momentum is suggested to characterize the scale invariance at critical points and fixed points, and displays a universal critical behavior in a variety of systems examined. PMID:26790004

We study the nonequilibrium time evolution of a variety of one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) systems (including SSH model, Kitaev-chain, Haldane model, p +i p superconductor, etc.) following a sudden quench. We prove analytically that topology-changing quenches are always followed by nonanalytical temporal behavior of return rates (logarithm of the Loschmidt echo), referred to as dynamical phasetransitions (DPTs) in the literature. Similarly to edge states in topological insulators, DPTs can be classified as being topologically protected or not. In 1D systems the number of topologically protected nonequilibrium time scales are determined by the difference between the initial and final winding numbers, while in 2D systems no such relation exists for the Chern numbers. The singularities of dynamical free energy in the 2D case are qualitatively different from those of the 1D case; the cusps appear only in the first time derivative.

Background: The Z =60 Nd-152144 isotopes span the spherical to the well-deformed collective nuclear structures. The shape phasetransition at N =86 -88 and N =88 -90 is intermediate between (Ba,Ce) and (Sm,Gd). The role of the Z =64 subshell closure in this forms an interesting subject of study. Objective: To analyze these complex features of the Nd spectra and the effects of the Z =64 subshell by comparing with predictions from the microscopic dynamic pairing plus quadrupole model to explain the shape transition at N =86 -90 . Method: Empirical analysis of the Nd spectra is illustrated. The K -band structures of the collective Iπ=2+ states in Nd-152144 are described. The predicted B (E 2 ) values and the interband B (E 2 ) ratios are compared with experimental data. The potential-energy surfaces of Nd-152146 are illustrated, and the role of protons and neutrons filling the Nilsson orbits is described. Results: The different effects of the Z =64 subshell on the ground-state band and the excited vibrational bands of Nd-148146 are illustrated. Conclusion: The important role of the dynamics of the nucleus, besides the static features, is made more transparent.

In Hidden Markov Models (HMMs), a Markov process is not directly accessible. In the simplest case, a two-state Markov model ``emits'' one of two ``symbols'' at each time step. We can think of these symbols as noisy measurements of the underlying state. With some probability, the symbol implies that the system is in one state when it is actually in the other. The ability to judge which state the system is in sets the efficiency of a Maxwell demon that observes state fluctuations in order to extract heat from a coupled reservoir. The state-inference problem is to infer the underlying state from such noisy measurements at each time step. We show that there can be a phasetransition in such measurements: for measurement error rates below a certain threshold, the inferred state always matches the observation. For higher error rates, there can be continuous or discontinuous transitions to situations where keeping a memory of past observations improves the state estimate. We can partly understand this behavior by mapping the HMM onto a 1d random-field Ising model at zero temperature. We also present more recent work that explores a larger parameter space and more states. Research funded by NSERC, Canada.

The memory features of memristive elements (resistors with memory), analogous to those found in biological synapses, have spurred the development of neuromorphic systems based on them (see, e.g.,). In turn, this requires a fundamental understanding of the collective dynamics of networks of memristive systems. Here, we study an experimentally-inspired model of disordered memristive networks in the limit of a slowly ramped voltage and show through simulations that these networks undergo a first-order phasetransition in the conductivity for sufficiently high values of memory, as quantified by the memristive ON/OFF ratio. We provide also a mean-field theory that reproduces many features of the transition and particularly examine the role of boundary conditions and current- vs. voltage-controlled networks. The dynamics of the mean-field theory suggest a distribution of conductance jumps which may be accessible experimentally. We finally discuss the ability of these networks to support massively-parallel computation. Work supported in part by the Center for Memory and Recording Research at UCSD.

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) transitionphase extends from the end of aerobraking (08/30/06) to the start of the Primary Science Phase (PSP) (11/08/2006). Within this timeframe, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) will acquire Mars scene observations in association with the deployment of the telescope cover (09/27/06) and during the operational checkout of the full science payload (09/29/06 - 10/05/06). The CRISM cover opening sequence includes scene observations that will be used to verify deployment and to validate the on-orbit instrument wavelength calibration. The limited cover opening observation set consists of: 1. A hyperspectral nadir scan acquired as the cover is deployed (first light) 2. A single targeted (gimbaled) hyperspectral observation in the northern plains 3. A restricted duration nadir multispectral strip The high level objectives for the science payload checkout are to obtain observations in support of in-flight wavelength, radiometric, and geometric instrument calibration, to acquire data that will contribute to the development of a first-order hyperspectral atmospheric correction, and to exercise numerous spacecraft and instrument observing modes and strategies that will be employed during PSP. The science payload checkout also enables a unique collaboration between the Mars Express OMEGA and CRISM teams, with both spectrometers slated to observe common target locations with a minimal time offset for the purpose of instrument cross-calibration. The priority CRISM observations for the payload checkout include: 1. Multispectral nadir and hyperspectral off-nadir targeted observations in support of the cross-calibration experiment with OMEGA 2. Terminator-to-terminator multispectral data acquisition demonstrating the strategy that will be used to construct the global multispectral survey map 3. Terminator-to-terminator atmospheric emission phase function (EPF) data acquisition demonstrating the observation

Provides a method, using the Rowland ring as a specimen, to observe the phasetransition process directly on the oscilloscope and even extract the critical exponent of ferromagnetic transition. Includes theory, experimental setup, and results. (MVL)

The ab initio constant pressure molecular dynamics technique and density functional theory with generalized gradient approximation (GGA) was used to study the pressure-induced phasetransition of CrO2. The phasetransition of the rutile (P42/mnm) to the orthorhombic CaCl2 (Pnnm) structure at 30 GPa was determined successfully in a constant pressure simulation. This phasetransition was analyzed from total energy calculations and, from the enthalpy calculation, occurred at around 17 GPa. Structural properties such as bulk modules, lattice parameters and phasetransition were compared with experimental results. The phasetransition at 12 ± 3 GPa was in good agreement with experimental results, as was the phasetransition from the orthorhombic CaCl2 (Pnnm) to the monoclinic (P21/c) structure also found at 35 GPa. PMID:26541468

The effect of different concentration of Fe on the phasetransition behavior of Lead ytterbium tantalate is investigated by dielectric and differential scanning calrimetry measurements. The samples are prepared through solid state reaction method and it has been found that the sintering temperature significantly lowered when the proportion of Pb(Fe 1/2Ta 1/2)O 3 increased. It has been observed that the doping in small amounts (0≤ x≤0.2) of Fe could meliorate the dielectric and ferroelectric properties. The diffuseness in the mode of phasetransition increases and the phasetransition temperature decreases as a function of Fe content. It is revealed that the dielectric data and heat capacity data follow a similar trend in the variation of the mode of phasetransition and phasetransition temperatures. The phasetransition temperature values obtained from the heat capacity measurement well agreed with the values obtained from dielectric measurement.

The Roberge-Weiss (RW) phasetransition in the imaginary chemical potential region is analyzed by the Polyakov-loop extended Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) model. In the RW phasetransition, the charge-conjugation symmetry is spontaneously broken, while the extended {\\mathbb Z}_{3} symmetry (the RW periodicity) is preserved. The RW transition is of second order at the endpoint. At the zero chemical potential, a crossover deconfinement transition appears as a remnant of the second-order RW phasetransition at the endpoint, while the charge-conjugation symmetry is always preserved.

We have studied the phasetransitions of a phospholipidic single-bilayer supported on a mica substrate by real-time temperature-controlled atomic force microscopy. We show the existence of two phasetransitions in this bilayer that we attribute to two gel (L(beta))/fluid (L(alpha)) transitions, corresponding to the independent melting of each leaflet of the bilayer. The ratio of each phase with temperature and the large broadening of the transitions' widths have been interpreted through a basic thermodynamic framework in which the surface tension varies during the transitions. The experimental data can be fit with such a model using known thermodynamic parameters. PMID:15879467

Global second-order phasetransitions are expected to produce scale-invariant gravitational wave spectra. In this manuscript we explore the dynamics of a symmetry-breaking phasetransition using lattice simulations. We explicitly calculate the stochastic gravitational wave background produced during the transition and subsequent self-ordering phase. We comment on this signal as it compares to the scale-invariant spectrum produced during inflation.

In this paper we study the superfluid-Mott-insulator phasetransition of ultracold dilute gas of bosonic atoms in an optical lattice by means of Green function method and Bogliubov transformation as well. The superfluid-Mott-insulator phasetransition condition is determined by the energy-band structure with an obvious interpretation of the transition mechanism. Moreover the superfluid phase is explained explicitly from the energy spectrum derived in terms of Bogliubov approach.

A Josephson junction formed by a superconducting ring interrupted by a semiconductor nanowire can realize a zero-dimensional class D topological superconductor. By coupling the Josephson junction to a ballistic wire and altering the strength of the coupling, one can drive this topological superconductor through a topological phasetransition. We study the compressibility of the junction as a probe of the topological phasetransition. We also study the dynamics of the phasetransition by studying the current pulse injected into the wire.

We investigate the lattice QCD Dirac operator with staggered fermions at temperatures around the chiral phasetransition. We present evidence of a metal-insulator transition in the low lying modes of the Dirac operator around the same temperature as the chiral phasetransition. This strongly suggests the phenomenon of Anderson localization drives the QCD vacuum to the chirally symmetric phase in a way similar to a metal-insulator transition in a disordered conductor. We also discuss how Anderson localization affects the usual phenomenological treatment of phasetransitions a la Ginzburg-Landau.

The phase structure of holographic entanglement entropy is studied in massive gravity for the quantum systems with finite and infinite volumes, which in the bulk is dual to calculating the minimal surface area for a black hole and black brane respectively. In the entanglement entropy-temperature plane, we find for both the black hole and black brane there is a Van der Waals-like phasetransition as the case in thermal entropy-temperature plane. That is, there is a first order phasetransition for the small charge and a second order phasetransition at the critical charge. For the first order phasetransition, the equal area law is checked and for the second order phasetransition, the critical exponent of the heat capacity is obtained. All the results show that the phase structure of holographic entanglement entropy is the same as that of thermal entropy regardless of the volume of the spacetime on the boundary.

Tungsten trioxide (WO3) nanowires were synthesized by thermal evaporation of tungsten powder in two steps: tungsten suboxide (WO3-x) nanowires were synthesized, and then oxidized in O2 ambient and transformed into WO3 nanowires. Raman spectroscopy was applied to study the thermochromic phasetransition of one-dimensional WO3 nanowires. From the temperature dependence of the characteristic mode at 33cm-1 in WO3, the phasetransition temperature was determined. It was found that the phasetransition of WO3 nanowires was reversible and the phasetransition temperatures were even lower than that of WO3 nanopowder.

We continue our numerical Monte Carlo simulation of a gas of closed loops on a 3 dimensional lattice, however, now in the presence of a topological term added to the action which corresponds to the total linking number between the loops. We compute the linking number using a novel approach employing certain notions from knot theory. Adding the topological term converts the particles into anyons. Interpreting the model as an effective theory that describes the 2+1-dimensional Abelian Higgs model in the asymptotic strong-coupling regime, the topological linking number simply corresponds to the addition to the action of the Chern-Simons term. The system continues to exhibit a phasetransition as a function of the vortex mass as it becomes small. We find the following new results. The Chern-Simons term has no effect on the Wilson loop. On the other hand, it does effect the ’t Hooft loop of a given configuration, adding the linking number of the ’t Hooft loop with all of the dynamical vortex loops. We find the unexpected result that both the Wilson loop and the ’t Hooft loop exhibit a perimeter law even though there are no massless particles in the theory, in both phases of the theory. It should be noted that our method suffers from numerical instabilities if the coefficient of the Chern-Simons term is too large; thus, we have restricted our results to small values of this parameter. Furthermore, interpreting the lattice loop gas as an effective theory describing the Abelian Higgs model is only known to be true in the infinite coupling limit; for strong but finite coupling this correspondence is only a conjecture, the validity of which is beyond the scope of this article.

We continue our numerical Monte Carlo simulation of a gas of closed loops on a 3 dimensional lattice, however, now in the presence of a topological term added to the action which corresponds to the total linking number between the loops. We compute the linking number using a novel approach employing certain notions from knot theory. Adding the topological term converts the particles into anyons. Interpreting the model as an effective theory that describes the 2+1-dimensional Abelian Higgs model in the asymptotic strong-coupling regime, the topological linking number simply corresponds to the addition to the action of the Chern-Simons term. The system continues to exhibit a phasetransition as a function of the vortex mass as it becomes small. We find the following new results. The Chern-Simons term has no effect on the Wilson loop. On the other hand, it does effect the 't Hooft loop of a given configuration, adding the linking number of the 't Hooft loop with all of the dynamical vortex loops. We find the unexpected result that both the Wilson loop and the 't Hooft loop exhibit a perimeter law even though there are no massless particles in the theory, in both phases of the theory. It should be noted that our method suffers from numerical instabilities if the coefficient of the Chern-Simons term is too large; thus, we have restricted our results to small values of this parameter. Furthermore, interpreting the lattice loop gas as an effective theory describing the Abelian Higgs model is only known to be true in the infinite coupling limit; for strong but finite coupling this correspondence is only a conjecture, the validity of which is beyond the scope of this article.

Stabilized tetragonal zirconia compounds exhibit a transformation toughening process in which stress applied to the material induces a crystallographic phasetransition. The phasetransition is accompanied by a volume expansion in the stressed region thereby dissipating stress and increasing the fracture strength of the material. The hydrostatic component of the stress required to induce the phasetransition can be investigated by the use of a high pressure technique in combination with Micro-Raman spectroscopy. The intensity of Raman lines characteristic for the crystallographic phases can be used to calculate the amount of material that has undergone the transition as a function of pressure. It was found that pressures on the order of 2-5 kBar were sufficient to produce an almost complete transition from the original tetragonal to the less dense monoclinic phase; while a further increase in pressure caused a gradual reversal of the transition back to the original tetragonal structure.

Technique measures solid/solid, glass/rubber, and liquid/liquid transition temperatures in polymers having dipole moments. Technique based on change in dipole packing that occurs with each transition and measured as change in electrical dissipation factor. Change in dipole packing occuring with each transition sensed by effect on dissipation factor.

Unlike conventional computational fluid dynamics methods, the lattice Boltzmann method (LBM) describes the dynamic behavior of fluids in a mesoscopic scale based on discrete forms of kinetic equations. In this scale, complex macroscopic phenomena like the formation and collapse of interfaces can be naturally described as related to source terms incorporated into the kinetic equations. In this context, a novel athermal lattice Boltzmann scheme for the simulation of phasetransition is proposed. The continuous kinetic model obtained from the Liouville equation using the mean-field interaction force approach is shown to be consistent with diffuse interface model using the Helmholtz free energy. Density profiles, interface thickness, and surface tension are analytically derived for a plane liquid-vapor interface. A discrete form of the kinetic equation is then obtained by applying the quadrature method based on prescribed abscissas together with a third-order scheme for the discretization of the streaming or advection term in the Boltzmann equation. Spatial derivatives in the source terms are approximated with high-order schemes. The numerical validation of the method is performed by measuring the speed of sound as well as by retrieving the coexistence curve and the interface density profiles. The appearance of spurious currents near the interface is investigated. The simulations are performed with the equations of state of Van der Waals, Redlich-Kwong, Redlich-Kwong-Soave, Peng-Robinson, and Carnahan-Starling. PMID:25493907

Phononic crystals (PCs) consisting of periodic materials with different acoustic properties have potential applications in functional devices. To realize more smart functions, it is desirable to actively control the properties of PCs on demand, ideally within the same fabricated system. Here, we report a tunable PC made of Ba0.7Sr0.3Ti O3 (BST) ceramics, wherein a 20-K temperature change near room temperature results in a 20% frequency shift in the transmission spectra induced by a ferroelectric phasetransition. The tunability phenomenon is attributed to the structure-induced resonant excitation of A0 and A1 Lamb modes that exist intrinsically in the uniform BST plate, while these Lamb modes are sensitive to the elastic properties of the plate and can be modulated by temperature in a BST plate around the Curie temperature. The study finds opportunities for creating tunable PCs and enables smart temperature-tuned devices such as the Lamb wave filter or sensor.

If only the fittest survive, why should one cooperate? Why should one sacrifice personal benefits for the common good? Recent research indicates that a comprehensive answer to such questions requires that we look beyond the individual and focus on the collective behavior that emerges as a result of the interactions among individuals, groups, and societies. Although undoubtedly driven also by culture and cognition, human cooperation is just as well an emergent, collective phenomenon in a complex system. Nonequilibrium statistical physics, in particular the collective behavior of interacting particles near phasetransitions, has already been recognized as very valuable for understanding counterintuitive evolutionary outcomes. However, unlike pairwise interactions among particles that typically govern solid-state physics systems, interactions among humans often involve group interactions, and they also involve a larger number of possible states even for the most simplified description of reality. Here we briefly review research done in the realm of the public goods game, and we outline future research directions with an emphasis on merging the most recent advances in the social sciences with methods of nonequilibrium statistical physics. By having a firm theoretical grip on human cooperation, we can hope to engineer better social systems and develop more efficient policies for a sustainable and better future.

We present a system to excite Raman transitions with minimum phase noise. The system uses a phase modulator to generate the phase locked beams required for the transition. We use a long calcite crystal to filter out one of the sidebands, avoiding the cancellation that appears at high detunings for phase modulation. The measured phase noise is limited by the quality of the microwave synthesizer. We use the calcite crystal a second time to produce a co-propagating Raman pair with perpendicular polarizations to drive velocity insensitive Raman transitions. Support from CONACYT and Fundacion Marcos Moshinsky.

A lattice model for amphiphilic aggregation in the presence of a structured waterlike solvent is studied through Monte Carlo simulations. We investigate the interplay between the micelle formation and the solvent phasetransition in two different regions of temperature-density phase diagram of pure water. A second order phasetransition between the gaseous (G) and high density liquid (HDL) phases that occurs at very high temperatures, and a first order phasetransition between the low density liquid (LDL) and (HDL) phases that takes place at lower temperatures. In both cases, we find the aggregate size distribution curve and the critical micellar concentration as a function of the solvent density across the transitions. We show that micelle formation drives the LDL-HDL first order phasetransition to lower solvent densities, while the transition G-HDL is driven to higher densities, which can be explained by the markedly different degrees of micellization in both cases. The diffusion coefficient of surfactants was also calculated in the LDL and HDL phases, changing abruptly its behavior due to the restructuring of waterlike solvent when we cross the first order LDL-HDL phasetransition. To understand such behavior, we calculate the solvent density and the number of hydrogen bonds per water molecule close to micelles. The curves of the interfacial solvent density and the number of hydrogen bonds per water molecule in the first hydration signal a local phase change of the interfacial water, clarifying the diffusion mechanism of free surfactants in the solvent.

A strain glass state was found to be located between B2-B19’ (cubic to monoclinic) phasetransition and B2-R (cubic to rhombohedral) phasetransition in Ti49Ni51 alloys after aging process. After a short time aging, strong strain glass transition was observed, because the size of the precipitates is small, which means the strain field induced by the precipitates is isotropic and point-defect-like, and the distribution of the precipitates is random. After a long time aging, the average size of the precipitates increases. The strong strain field induced by the precipitates around them forces the symmetry of the matrix materials to conform to the symmetry of the crystalline structure of the precipitates, which results in the new phasetransition. The experiment shows that there exists no well-defined boundary in the evolution from the strain glass transition to the new phasetransition. Due to its generality, this glass mediated phasetransition divergence scheme can be applied to other proper material systems to induce a more important new phasetransition path, which can be useful in the field of phasetransition engineering.

A strain glass state was found to be located between B2-B19' (cubic to monoclinic) phasetransition and B2-R (cubic to rhombohedral) phasetransition in Ti49Ni51 alloys after aging process. After a short time aging, strong strain glass transition was observed, because the size of the precipitates is small, which means the strain field induced by the precipitates is isotropic and point-defect-like, and the distribution of the precipitates is random. After a long time aging, the average size of the precipitates increases. The strong strain field induced by the precipitates around them forces the symmetry of the matrix materials to conform to the symmetry of the crystalline structure of the precipitates, which results in the new phasetransition. The experiment shows that there exists no well-defined boundary in the evolution from the strain glass transition to the new phasetransition. Due to its generality, this glass mediated phasetransition divergence scheme can be applied to other proper material systems to induce a more important new phasetransition path, which can be useful in the field of phasetransition engineering. PMID:26307500

A quantum phasetransition is a phasetransition at absolute zero occurring under variations in an external non-thermal parameter such as magnetic field or pressure. Quantum phasetransitions are one among the important topics currently investigated in condensed matter physics. They are observed in various systems, e.g., in the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phasetransition in LiHoF 4 or in the superconductor-metal phasetransition in nanowires. A particular class of quantum phasetransitions, which is phasetransitions in the presence of disorder and dissipation, is investigated here. An example of this class is the ferromagnetic-paramagnetic phasetransition in Ni 1-xVx or CePd 1-xRhx caused by variations in chemical composition. In these system, disorder is due to random positions of doping element and the dynamics of order-parameter fluctuations is dissipative due to conduction electrons. These quantum phasetransitions are explained using the following approach: The Landau-Ginzberg-Wilson functional, which is derived from a microscopic Hamiltonian, is treated by the strong-disorder renormalization group method. For ohmic damping, phasetransitions are strongly influenced by disorder and the critical point is an infinite-randomness fixed point, which is in the universality class same as that of the random transverse-field Ising model. The scaling form of observable quantities is activated type rather than conventional power-law type. For superohmic damping, the strong-disorder renormalization group method yields one of the recursion relationships different from ohmic damping. This difference indicates a more conventional transition for superohmic damping.

The dynamical process of the photoinduced phasetransition in polydiacetylene (PDA) single crystals has been investigated by time-resolved spectroscopy with varying temperature, excitation photon energy, and intensity. The photoinduced phasetransition can be driven bidirectionally between the two (A and B) phases by dichromatic irradiation of a laser pulse, when the temperature of the PDA crystal is kept around the phasetransition temperature (Tc). It was found that primary process of the photoinduced phasetransition is mostly completed within 50 ns. In addition, occurrence of a transient domain injection has been confirmed at temperatures far below and above Tc. Together with the time-resolved measurement of photocurrent, we have found a close correlation between the photocurrent intensity and the phase conversion efficiency. This suggests that the domain walls separating the A and B phases can carry the charge.

The present invention includes a method for identifying and probing phasetransitions in materials. A polymorphic material capable of existing in at least one non-centrosymmetric phase is interrogated with a beam of laser light at a chosen wavelength and frequency. A phasetransition is induced in the material while it is interrogated. The intensity of light scattered by the material and having a wavelength equal to one half the wavelength of the interrogating laser light is detected. If the phasetransition results in the production of a non-centrosymmetric phase, the intensity of this scattered light increases; if the phasetransition results in the disappearance of a non-centrosymmetric phase, the intensity of this scattered light decreases.

It was recently demonstrated that Stillinger-Weber silicon undergoes a liquid-liquid first-order phasetransition deep into the supercooled region (Sastry and Angell 2003 Nat. Mater. 2 739). Here we study the effects of perturbations on this phasetransition. We show that the order of the liquid-liquid transition changes with negative pressure. We also find that the liquid-liquid transition disappears when the three-body term of the potential is strengthened by as little as 5%. This implies that the details of the potential could affect strongly the nature and even the existence of the liquid-liquid phase.

We carry out a comparative study of the influence of a random anisotropy field on continuous and discontinuous phasetransitions. The ordered phase, which is reached via a continuous symmetry breaking phasetransition, is characterized by an order parameter and by a corresponding hydrodynamic continuum field. We assume that the response of the hydrodynamic field to the imposed disorder results in a domainlike pattern of the system. For a strong enough disorder both transitions become gradual. For weaker disorder strengths the disorder converts a second order transition into a discontinuous one.

Phasetransitions of metallic multilayers induced by differences in interface energy are considered thermodynamically, based on a thermodynamic model for interface energy and the Goldschmidt premise for lattice contraction. Bi-phasetransition diagrams of Co/Cr, Zr/Nb, Ti/Nb and Ti/Al multilayers are constructed, which are in agreement with experimental results.

Thin film ferroelectrics and multiferroics are two important classes of materials interesting both from a scientific and a technological prospective. The volatility of lead and bismuth as well as environmental issues regarding the toxicity of lead are two disadvantages of the most commonly used ferroelectric random access memory (FeRAM) materials such as Pb(Zr,Ti)O3 and SrBi2Ta2O9. Therefore lead-free thin film ferroelectrics are promising substitutes as long as (a) they can be grown on technologically important substrates such as silicon, and (b) their T c and Pr become comparable to that of well established ferroelectrics. On the other hand, the development of functional room temperature ferroelectric ferromagnetic multiferroics could lead to very interesting phenomena such as control of magnetism with electric fields and control of electrical polarization with magnetic fields. This thesis focuses on the understanding of material structure-property relations using nonlinear optical spectroscopy. Nonlinear spectroscopy is an excellent tool for probing the onset of ferroelectricity, and domain dynamics in strained ferroelectrics and multiferroics. Second harmonic generation was used to detect ferroelectricity and the antiferrodistortive phasetransition in thin film SrTiO3. Incipient ferroelectric CaTiO3 has been shown to become ferroelectric when strained with a combination of SHG and dielectric measurements. The tensorial nature of the induced nonlinear polarization allows for probing of the BaTiO3 and SrTiO3 polarization contributions in nanoscale BaTiO3/SrTiO3 superlattices. In addition, nonlinear optics was used to demonstrate ferroelectricity in multiferroic EuTiO3. Finally, confocal SHG and Raman microscopy were utilized to visualize polar domains in incipient ferroelectric and ferroelastic CaTiO3.

We propose that quantum phasetransitions are generally accompanied by non-analyticities of the von Neumann (entanglement) entropy. In particular, the entropy is non-analytic at the Anderson transition, where it exhibits unusual fractal scaling. We also examine two dissipative quantum systems of considerable interest to the study of decoherence and find that non-analyticities occur if and only if the system undergoes a quantum phasetransition.

It has been recently realized that in peripheral heavy-ion collisions at high energies, a sizable magnetic field is produced in the interaction region. Although this field becomes weak at the proper times when the chiral phasetransition is believed to occur, it is still significant so as to ask whether it influences such transition. We use the linear sigma model to study the chiral phasetransition in the presence of weak magnetic fields.

We show that, for an exactly solvable quantum spin model, a discontinuity in the first derivative of the ground-state concurrence appears in the absence of a quantum phasetransition. It is opposed to the popular belief that the nonanalyticity property of ground-state concurrence can be used to determine quantum phasetransitions. We further point out that the analyticity property of the ground-state concurrence in general can be more intricate than that of the ground-state energy. Thus there is no one-to-one correspondence between quantum phasetransitions and the nonanalyticity property of the concurrence. Moreover, we show that the von Neumann entropy, as another measure of entanglement, cannot reveal quantum phasetransitions in the present model. Therefore, in order to link with quantum phasetransitions, some other measures of entanglement are needed.

Based on a non-rigorous formalism called the "cavity method", physicists have put forward intriguing predictions on phasetransitions in diluted mean-field models, in which the geometry of interactions is induced by a sparse random graph or hypergraph. One example of such a model is the graph coloring problem on the Erdős-Renyi random graph G( n, d/ n), which can be viewed as the zero temperature case of the Potts antiferromagnet. The cavity method predicts that in addition to the k-colorability phasetransition studied intensively in combinatorics, there exists a second phasetransition called the condensation phasetransition (Krzakala et al. in Proc Natl Acad Sci 104:10318-10323, 2007). In fact, there is a conjecture as to the precise location of this phasetransition in terms of a certain distributional fixed point problem. In this paper we prove this conjecture for k exceeding a certain constant k 0.

Understanding the behavior of molten fuel-steel mixtures subjected to fission heating within a HCDA environment is essential to continuing the mechanistic description of the whole-core accident into the transitionphase, and further to a permanent subcritical and safe fuel debris configuration. Fundamentally, the RX1 TREAT test will simulte the transitionphase of a HCDA (the accident phase in which the fuel in individual subassemblies melts and becomes a heat-generating pool of molten fuel and boiling steel). This assessment of the feasibility of such a test indicates that a transitionphase test can be achieved in TREAT, at power levels simulating decay heat.

We examine the dynamics of the electroweak phasetransition in the early Universe. For Higgs masses in the range 46 less than or = M sub H less than or = 150 GeV and top quark masses less than 200 GeV, regions of symmetric and asymmetric vacuum coexist to below the critical temperature, with thermal equilibrium between the two phases maintained by fluctuations of both phases. We propose that the transition to the asymmetric vacuum is completed by percolation of these subcritical fluctuations. Our results are relevant to scenarios of baryogenesis that invoke a weakly first-order phasetransition at the electroweak scale.

We discuss wetting of rough surfaces with two-phase (solid-liquid), three-phase (solid-water-air and solid-oil-water), and four-phase (solid-oil-water-air) interfaces mimicking fish scales. We extend the traditional Wenzel and Cassie-Baxter models to these cases. We further present experimental observations of two-, three-, and four-phase systems in the case of metal-matrix composite solid surfaces immersed in water and in contact with oil. Experimental observations show that wetting transitions can occur in underwater oleophobic systems. We also discuss wetting transitions as phasetransitions using the phase-field approach and show that a phenomenological gradient coefficient is responsible for wetting transition, energy barriers, and wetting/dewetting asymmetry (hysteresis). PMID:22054126

We consider two-dimensional Chern insulators and time-reversal invariant topological insulators and discuss the effect of perturbations breaking either particle-number conservation or time-reversal symmetry. The appearance of trivial mass terms is expected to cause quantum phasetransitions into trivial phases when such a perturbation overweighs the topological term. These phasetransitions are usually associated with a bulk-gap closing. In contrast, the chiral Chern insulator is unaffected by particle-number breaking perturbations. Moreover, the [Formula: see text] topological insulator undergoes phasetransitions into topologically trivial phases without bulk-gap closing in the presence of any of such perturbations. In certain cases, these phasetransitions can be circumvented and the protection restored by another U(1) symmetry, e.g. due to spin conservation. These findings are discussed in the context of interacting topological insulators. PMID:27530509

A novel absorption process called PhaseTransitional Absorption was invented. What is the PhaseTransitional Absorption? PhaseTransitional Absorption is a two or multi phase absorption system, CO{sub 2} rich phase and CO{sub 2} lean phase. During Absorption, CO{sub 2} is accumulated in CO{sub 2} rich phase. After separating the two phases, CO{sub 2} rich phase is forward to regeneration. After regeneration, the regenerated CO{sub 2} rich phase combines CO{sub 2} lean phase to form absorbent again to complete the cycle. The advantage for PhaseTransitional Absorption is obvious, significantly saving on regeneration energy. Because CO{sub 2} lean phase was separated before regeneration, only CO{sub 2} rich phase was forward to regeneration. The absorption system we developed has the features of high absorption rate, high loading and working capacity, low corrosion, low regeneration heat, no toxic to environment, etc. The process evaluation shows that our process is able to save 80% energy cost by comparing with MEA process.

We examine the implications for stellar core collapse of a phasetransition occurring at densities of a few times nuclear matter density. We use an equation of state that describes a phasetransition between bulk nuclear matter and a phase consisting of unbound quarks and gluons. We analyze the effect on the prompt shock, the production of strange matter, and the effect on the neutrino signal and the delayed mechanism.

We report an analytic and numerical study of a phasetransition in a P problem (the assignment problem) that separates two phases whose representatives are the simple matching problem (an easy P problem) and the traveling-salesman problem (a NP-complete problem). Like other phasetransitions found in combinatoric problems (K-satisfiability, number partitioning) this can help to understand the nature of the difficulties in solving NP problems an to find more accurate algorithms for them.

We study geodesics on the parameter manifold for systems exhibiting second order classical and quantum phasetransitions. The coupled nonlinear geodesic equations are solved numerically for a variety of models which show such phasetransitions in the thermodynamic limit. It is established that both in the classical as well as in the quantum cases, geodesics are confined to a single phase and exhibit turning behavior near critical points. Our results are indicative of a geometric universality in widely different physical systems. PMID:23214748

The formation of micellar nematics is discussed with emphasis on the transitions between nematic phases and nematic-smectic transitions. Phase diagrams for MTAB/l-decanol/D,O systems show a direct transition between uniaxial nematics. Electrical conductivity and birefringence measurements on a mixture of sodium decylsulfate. 1-decanol, D,O demonstrate, on the other hand, the existence of a biaxial nemantic range that separates the Uniaxial nematics. On a mixture of cesium perflouroctanoate and H 2O the electrical conductivity and rotational viscosity are used to discuss the relevant features of nematic-lamellar-smectic transitions. The formation of elongated ribbon-like micelles at the nematic-smectic transition is suggested. Transitions between different nematic phases in the MTAB system may be connected with a structural change from long micelles with a fairly circular cross section to similar micelles with a more elliptical cross section.

The emergence of dynamical abrupt transitions in the macroscopic state of a system is currently a subject of the utmost interest. The occurrence of a first-order phasetransition to synchronization of an ensemble of networked phase oscillators was reported, so far, for very particular network architectures. Here, we show how a sharp, discontinuous transition can occur, instead, as a generic feature of networks of phase oscillators. Precisely, we set conditions for the transition from unsynchronized to synchronized states to be first-order, and demonstrate how these conditions can be attained in a very wide spectrum of situations. We then show how the occurrence of such transitions is always accompanied by the spontaneous setting of frequency-degree correlation features. Third, we show that the conditions for abrupt transitions can be even softened in several cases. Finally, we discuss, as a possible application, the use of this phenomenon to express magnetic-like states of synchronization. PMID:23412391

First-principles calculations have been performed to study the energetic, electronic, and magnetic properties of substitutional 3d transition metal dopants in monoclinic transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDs) as topological insulators ( 1 T ' - MX 2 with M = (Mo, W) and X = (S, Se)). We find various favorite features in these doped systems to introduce magnetism and other desirable electronic properties: (i) The Mn embedded monoclinic TMDs are magnetic, and the doped 1 T ' - MoS 2 still maintains the semiconducting character with high concentration of Mn, while an electronic phasetransition occurs in other Mn doped monoclinic TMDs with an increasing concentration of Mn. Two Mn dopants prefer the ferromagnetic coupling except for substitution of the nearest Mo atoms in 1 T ' - MoS 2 , and the strength of exchange interaction shows anisotropic behavior with dopants along one Mo zigzag chain having much stronger coupling. (ii) The substitutional V is a promising hole dopant, which causes little change to the energy dispersion around the conduction and valence band edges in most systems. In contrast, parts of the conduction band drop for the electron dopants Co and Ni due to the large structural distortion. Moreover, closing band gaps of the host materials are observed with increasing carrier concentration. (iii) Single Fe dopant has a magnetic moment, but it also dopes electrons. When two Fe dopants have a small distance, the systems turn into nonmagnetic semiconductors. (iv) The formation energies of all dopants are much lower than those in hexagonal TMDs and are all negative in certain growth conditions, suggesting possible realization of the predicted magnetism, electronic phasetransitions as well as carrier doping in 1 T ' - MX 2 based topological devices.

Within the scope of a thermodynamic description using the maximum entropy production principle, transitions from one nonequilibrium (kinetic) regime to another are considered. It is shown that in the case when power-law dependencies of thermodynamic flux on force are similar for two regimes, only a transition accompanied by a positive jump of thermodynamic flux is possible between them. It is found that the difference in powers of the dependencies of thermodynamic fluxes on forces results in a number of interesting nonequilibrium transitions between kinetic regimes, including the reentrant one with a negative jump of thermodynamic flux. PMID:21867119

We study the strength of a first-order electroweak phasetransition in the Inert Doublet Model (IDM), where particle dark matter (DM) is comprised of the lightest neutral inert Higgs boson. We improve over previous studies in the description and treatment of the finite-temperature effective potential and of the electroweak phasetransition. We focus on a set of benchmark models inspired by the key mechanisms in the IDM leading to a viable dark matter particle candidate, and illustrate how to enhance the strength of the electroweak phasetransition by adjusting the masses of the yet undiscovered IDM Higgs states. We argue that across a variety of DM masses, obtaining a strong enough first-order phasetransition is a generic possibility in the IDM. We find that due to direct dark matter searches and collider constraints, a sufficiently strong transition and a thermal relic density matching the universal DM abundance is possible only in the Higgs funnel regime.

Recently there was a flurry of activities in studying the effects of phasetransitions in the Earth's mantle. From petrological and geophysical considerations, phase-transitions would also play an important role in venusian dynamics. The basic differences between the two planets are the surface boundary conditions, both thermally and mechanically. In this vein we have studied time-dependent mantle convection with multiple phasetransitions and depth-dependent thermal expansivity (alpha is approximately rho(exp -6)), based on high-pressure and temperature measurements. Both the olivine-spinel and spinel-perovskite transitions were simulated by introducing an effective thermal expansivity, as described. Used together with the extended Boussinesq Approximation this method serves as a powerful tool to examine the effects of phasetransitions on convection at relatively low computational costs.

We investigate how the dimensionless ratio given by the Chern-Simons diffusion rate ΓCS divided by the product of the entropy density s and temperature T behaves across different kinds of phasetransitions in the class of bottom-up nonconformal Einstein-dilaton holographic models originally proposed by Gubser and Nellore. By tuning the dilaton potential, one is able to holographically mimic a first order, a second order, or a crossover transition. In a first order phasetransition, ΓCS/s T jumps at the critical temperature (as previously found in the holographic literature), while in a second order phasetransition it develops an infinite slope. On the other hand, in a crossover, ΓCS/s T behaves smoothly, although displaying a fast variation around the pseudo-critical temperature. In all the cases, ΓCS/s T increases with decreasing T . The behavior of the Chern-Simons diffusion rate across different phasetransitions is expected to play a relevant role for the chiral magnetic effect around the QCD critical end point, which is a second order phasetransition point connecting a crossover band to a line of first order phasetransition. Our findings in the present work add to the literature the first predictions for the Chern-Simons diffusion rate across second order and crossover transitions in strongly coupled nonconformal, non-Abelian gauge theories.

The high-pressure behavior of diamantane was investigated using angle-dispersive synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy in diamond anvil cells. Our experiments revealed that the structural transitions in diamantane were extremely sensitive to deviatoric stress. Under non-hydrostatic conditions, diamantane underwent a cubic (space group Pa3) to a monoclinic phasetransition at below 0.15 GPa, the lowest pressure we were able to measure. Upon further compression to 3.5 GPa, this monoclinic phase transformed into another high-pressure monoclinic phase which persisted to 32 GPa, the highest pressure studied in our experiments. However, under more hydrostatic conditions using silicone oil as a pressure medium, the transition pressure to the first high-pressure monoclinic phase was elevated to 7–10 GPa, which coincided with the hydrostatic limit of silicone oil. In another experiment using helium as a pressure medium, no phasetransitions were observed to the highest pressure we reached (13 GPa). In addition, large hysteresis and sluggish transition kinetics were observed upon decompression. Over the pressure range where phasetransitions were confirmed by XRD, only continuous changes in the Raman spectra were observed. This suggests that these phasetransitions are associated with unit cell distortions and modifications in molecular packing rather than the formation of new carbon-carbon bonds under pressure.

The high-pressure behavior of diamantane was investigated using angle-dispersive synchrotron x-ray diffraction (XRD) and Raman spectroscopy in diamond anvil cells. Our experiments revealed that the structural transitions in diamantane were extremely sensitive to deviatoric stress. Under non-hydrostatic conditions, diamantane underwent a cubic (space group Pa3) to a monoclinic phasetransition at below 0.15 GPa, the lowest pressure we were able to measure. Upon further compression to 3.5 GPa, this monoclinic phase transformed into another high-pressure monoclinic phase which persisted to 32 GPa, the highest pressure studied in our experiments. However, under more hydrostatic conditions using silicone oil as a pressure medium, the transition pressure to the first high-pressure monoclinic phase was elevated to 7-10 GPa, which coincided with the hydrostatic limit of silicone oil. In another experiment using helium as a pressure medium, no phasetransitions were observed to the highest pressure we reached (13 GPa). In addition, large hysteresis and sluggish transition kinetics were observed upon decompression. Over the pressure range where phasetransitions were confirmed by XRD, only continuous changes in the Raman spectra were observed. This suggests that these phasetransitions are associated with unit cell distortions and modifications in molecular packing rather than the formation of new carbon-carbon bonds under pressure.

First-principles calculations have been performed to investigate the high pressure phasetransitions and dynamical properties of the less known lead polonium compound. The calculated ground state parameters for the NaCl phase show good agreement with the experimental data. The obtained results show that the intermediate phasetransition for this compound is the orthorhombic Pnma phase. The PbPo undergoes from the rocksalt to Pnma phase at 4.20 GPa. Further structural phasetransition from intermediate to CsCl phase has been found at 8.5 GPa. In addition, phonon dispersion spectra were derived from linear-response to density functional theory. In particular, we show that the dynamical properties of PbPo exhibit some peculiar features compared to other III-V compounds. Finally, thermodynamics properties have been also addressed from quasiharmonic approximation.

To demonstrate the role played by the von Neumann entropy (vNE) spectra in quantum phasetransitions we investigate the one-dimensional anisotropic SU(2)\\otimes {XXZ} spin-orbital model with negative exchange parameter. In the case of classical Ising orbital interactions we discover an unexpected novel phase with Majumdar-Ghosh-like spin-singlet dimer correlations triggered by spin-orbital entanglement (SOE) and having k=π /2 orbital correlations, while all the other phases are disentangled. For anisotropic XXZ orbital interactions both SOE and spin-dimer correlations extend to the antiferro-spin/alternating-orbital phase. This quantum phase provides a unique example of two coupled order parameters which change the character of the phasetransition from first-order to continuous. Hereby we have established the vNE spectral function as a valuable tool to identify the change of ground state degeneracies and of the SOE of elementary excitations in quantum phasetransitions.

Granular media, such as sand, jam under low stresses but yield and flow when stressed sufficiently. We present experiments that uncover that weak vibrations qualitatively modify the nature of this yielding transition from 1st to 2nd order: when the vibration strength, which plays a role similar to temperature, is raised sufficiently, the yielding transition becomes continuous. At the critical point, we find diverging fluctuations, growing timescales and the emergence of a length scale: hallmarks of criticality never seen before in sand.

General conditions controlling the formation of incommensurate phases in crystals undergoing reconstructive phasetransitions are analyzed in the framework of a model-free phenomenological approach. A universal trend to stabilizing such intermediate phases in the vicinity of reconstructive phasetransitions stems from the fact that certain high-order improper Lifshitz invariants reduce at such transformations to ones bi-linearly coupling critical displacement gradients and strains or even to the proper Lifshitz invariant. The approach developed here introduces a universal mechanism for the formation both of premartensite incommensurate phases and complex structures with giant unit cells, as found in some elemental crystals at high pressure.

We investigate the superconductor-insulator phasetransition in the two-dimensional boson Hubbard system with short-range interactions. Fluctuations of [ital both] the phase and the amplitude of the superfluid order parameter are included in the determination of the phase diagram at zero and finite temperatures. The mean-field phase boundary is compared to quantum Monte Carlo results. We also calculate the frequency-dependent conductivity in the vicinity of the phasetransition and find it universal at the multicritical point.

The applicability of the Savic and Kasanin (1962-1967) classical theory of dense matter to laboratory experiments requiring estimates of high-pressure phasetransitions was examined by determining phasetransition pressures for a set of 19 chemical substances (including elements, hydrocarbons, metal oxides, and salts) for which experimental data were available. A comparison between experimental and transition points and those predicted by the Savic-Kasanin theory showed that the theory can be used for estimating values of transition pressures. The results also support conclusions obtained in previous astronomical applications of the Savic-Kasanin theory.

The photopyroelectric (PPE) technique is one of the photothermal (PT) methods mostly used for phasetransitions investigations. In this paper, we want to compare the PPE results with those obtained using another, recently developed PT method [the photothermoelectric (PTE) calorimetry] for the same purpose of detecting phasetransitions. The well-known ferro-paraelectric phasetransition of TGS, taking place at a convenient temperature (about 49 {}^{circ }hbox {C}), has been selected for demonstration. A comparison of the two PPE and PTE methods, both in the back detection configuration (in the special case of optically opaque sample and thermally thick regime for both sensors and sample) shows that they are equally suitable for phasetransitions detection. Performing a proper calibration, the amplitude and phase of the signals can be used in order to obtain the critical behaviour of all sample's static and dynamic thermal parameters.

The S=1/2 three-leg quantum spin tube is investigated using the numerical diagonalization. The study indicated a new quantum phasetransition between the 1/3 magnetization plateau phase and the plateauless one, with respect to the spin anisotropy. The phase diagram is also presented.

We explore herein the capillary condensation for various geometries. Capillary condensation is studied in the presence of van der Waals forces. We derive the grand free energy, and we analyze the phasetransitions, the absorption isotherms and the triple point. Phasetransitions between full, empty and two films are investigated and the shape of the liquid is calculated. We also analyze an important application of wetting phenomena and capillary condensation in binary polymer blends and investigate the type of wetting transitions presented and the phase diagram. SUNY Oswego SCAC Grant, NSF Noyce Grant.

Topological insulators and topological superconductors are distinguished by their bulk phasetransitions and gapless states at a sharp boundary with the vacuum. Quasicrystals have recently been found to be topologically nontrivial. In quasicrystals, the bulk phasetransitions occur in the same manner as standard topological materials, but their boundary phenomena are more subtle. In this Letter we directly observe bulk phasetransitions, using photonic quasicrystals, by constructing a smooth boundary between topologically distinct one-dimensional quasicrystals. Moreover, we use the same method to experimentally confirm the topological equivalence between the Harper and Fibonacci quasicrystals. PMID:25166388

We propose an all-solid-state tunable Bragg filter with a phasetransition material as the defect layer. Bragg filters based on a vanadium dioxide defect layer sandwiched between silicon dioxide/titanium dioxide Bragg gratings are experimentally demonstrated. Temperature dependent reflection spectroscopy shows the dynamic tunability and hysteresis properties of the Bragg filter. Temperature dependent Raman spectroscopy reveals the connection between the tunability and the phasetransition of the vanadium dioxide defect layer. This work paves a new avenue in tunable Bragg filter designs and promises more applications by combining phasetransition materials and optical cavities. PMID:27607643

A first-order phasetransition is a characteristic feature of the Gaussian approximation in spin-fluctuation theory. We describe a method for taking into account the fourth-order terms of the free energy expansion using partial averaging. In the example of the Ising model, we show that renormalization of the magnetic susceptibility leads to the second-order phasetransition, which is experimentally observed in metals. Near the phasetransition, we use the parameter substitution method to compute temperature dependencies. We perform a qualitative analysis and explain the mechanism of the renormalization.

Disorder influence on photon transmission behavior is theoretically studied in a one-dimensional waveguide side coupled with a series of optical cavities. For this sake, we propose a concept of disorder-induced transparency appearing on the low-transmission spectral background. Two kinds of disorders, namely, disorders of optical cavity eigenfrequencies and relative phases in the waveguide side coupled with optical cavities are considered to show the disorder-induced transparency. They both can induce the optical transmission peaks on the low-transmission backgrounds. The statistical mean value of the transmission also increases with increasing the disorders of the cavity eigenfrequencies and relative phases.

Crash risk prediction models were developed to link safety to various phases and phasetransitions defined by the three phase traffic theory. Results of the Bayesian conditional logit analysis showed that different traffic states differed distinctly with respect to safety performance. The random-parameter logit approach was utilized to account for the heterogeneity caused by unobserved factors. The Bayesian inference approach based on the Markov Chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) method was used for the estimation of the random-parameter logit model. The proposed approach increased the prediction performance of the crash risk models as compared with the conventional logit model. The three phase traffic theory can help us better understand the mechanism of crash occurrences in various traffic states. The contributing factors to crash likelihood can be well explained by the mechanism of phasetransitions. We further discovered that the free flow state can be divided into two sub-phases on the basis of safety performance, including a true free flow state in which the interactions between vehicles are minor, and a platooned traffic state in which bunched vehicles travel in successions. The results of this study suggest that a safety perspective can be added to the three phase traffic theory. The results also suggest that the heterogeneity between different traffic states should be considered when estimating the risks of crash occurrences on freeways. PMID:26367463

Dimensionality play significant role on `phasetransitions'. Fluids in macroscopic confinement (bulk or 3-Dimensional, 3D) do not show significant changes in their phasetransition properties with extent of confinement, since the number of molecules away from the surrounding surfaces is astronomically higher than the number of molecules in close proximity of the confining surfaces. In microscopic confinement (quasi 3D to quasi-2D), however, the number of molecules away from the close proximity of the surface is not as high as is the case with macroscopic (3D) confinement. Hence, under the same thermodynamic conditions `phasetransition' properties at microscopic confinement may not remain the same as the macroscopic or 3D values. Phasetransitions at extremely small scale become very sensitive to the dimensions as well as the surface characteristics of the system. In this work our investigations reveal the effect of dimensionality on the phasetransition from 3D to quasi-2D to 2D behavior. We have used grand canonical transition matrix Monte Carlo simulation to understand the vapor-liquid phasetransitions from 3D to quasi-2D behavior. Such studies can be helpful in understanding and controlling the fluid film behaviour confined between solid surfaces of few molecular diameters, for example, in lubrication applications.

Control of the timing of the inspiratory/expiratory (IE) phasetransition is a hallmark of respiratory pattern formation. In principle, sensory feedback from pulmonary stretch receptors (Breuer–Hering reflex, BHR) is seen as the major controller for the IE phasetransition, while pontine-based control of IE phasetransition by both the pontine Kölliker–Fuse nucleus (KF) and parabrachial complex is seen as a secondary or backup mechanism. However, previous studies have shown that the BHR can habituate in vivo. Thus, habituation reduces sensory feedback, so the role of the pons, and specifically the KF, for IE phasetransition may increase dramatically. Pontine-mediated control of the IE phasetransition is not completely understood. In the present review, we discuss existing models for ponto-medullary interaction that may be involved in the control of inspiratory duration and IE transition. We also present intracellular recordings of pontine respiratory units derived from an in situ intra-arterially perfused brainstem preparation of rats. With the absence of lung inflation, this preparation generates a normal respiratory pattern and many of the recorded pontine units demonstrated phasic respiratory-related activity. The analysis of changes in membrane potentials of pontine respiratory neurons has allowed us to propose a number of pontine-medullary interactions not considered before. The involvement of these putative interactions in pontine-mediated control of IE phasetransitions is discussed. PMID:19651653

Particles of magnetic fluids (ferrofluids), as is known from experiments, can condense to bulk dense phases at low temperatures (that are close to room temperature) in response to an external magnetic field. It is also known that a uniform external magnetic field increases the threshold temperature of the observed condensation, thus stimulating the condensation process. Within the framework of early theories, this phenomenon is interpreted as a classical gas-liquid phasetransition in a system of individual particles involved in a dipole-dipole interaction. However, subsequent investigations have revealed that, before the onset of a bulk phasetransition, particles can combine to form a chain cluster or, possibly, a topologically more complex heterogeneous cluster. In an infinitely strong magnetic field, the formation of chains apparently suppresses the onset of a gas-liquid phasetransition and the condensation of magnetic particles most likely proceeds according to the scenario of a gas-solid phasetransition with a wide gap between spinodal branches. This paper reports on the results of investigations into the specific features of the condensation of particles in the absence of an external magnetic field. An analysis demonstrates that, despite the formation of chains, the condensation of particles in this case can proceed according to the scenario of a gas-liquid phasetransition with a critical point in the continuous binodal. Consequently, a uniform magnetic field not only can stimulate the condensation phasetransition in a system of magnetic particles but also can be responsible for a qualitative change in the scenario of the phasetransition. This inference raises the problem regarding a threshold magnetic field in which there occurs a change in the scenario of the phasetransition.

Synthesis and crystal structure, magnetization and heat capacity measurements of phase pure polycrystalline TmVO3 are reported. TmVO3 was stabilized in the orthorhombic structure by thermal treatment of the precursor TmVO4 in a reducing atmosphere. Magnetization and heat capacity measurements reveal the presence of several successive structural and magnetic phasetransitions in this compound. At T = 108 K, the sample undergoes a transition from a paramagnetic state to an antiferromagnetic state, followed by a second transition at 78 K which is related to spin and orbital reorientation. The heat capacity measurements reveal the presence of a third transition in the paramagnetic state (at T = 175 K), which corresponds to a structural phasetransition and orbital ordering. At low temperatures (~15 K) and weak fields, there is an anomaly in the magnetization, which may be associated with antiferromagnetic short range ordering of the Tm3+ ions.

Time-resolved measurements were performed on the photochemically induced isothermal phasetransition of polymer liquid crystals (PLC) with mesogenic side chains of phenyl benzoate (PAPB3) and cyanobiphenyl (PACB3) under conditions wherein the photochemical reaction of the doped photoresponsive molecule (4-butyl-4-{prime}-methoxyazobenzene, BMAB) was completed within {approximately} 10 ns, and the subsequent phasetransition of the matrix PLC from nematic (N) to isotropic (I) state was followed by time-resolved measurements of the birefringence of the system. Formation of a sufficient amount of the cis isomer of BMAB with a single pulse of a laser lowered the N-I phasetransition temperature of the mixture, inducing the N-I phasetransition of PLCs isothermally in a time range of {approximately} 200 ms. This time range is comparable to that of low molecular weight liquid crystals, indicating that suppression in mobility of mesogens in PLCs does not affect significantly the thermodynamically controlled process.

The first-order metal-insulator phasetransition in VO{sub 2} is characterized by an ultrafast several-orders-of-magnitude change in electrical conductivity and optical transmittance, which makes this material an attractive candidate for the fabrication of optical limiting elements, thermochromic coatings, and Mott field-effect transistors. Here, we demonstrate that the phase-transition temperature and hysteresis can be tuned by scaling VO{sub 2} to nanoscale dimensions. A simple hydrothermal protocol yields anisotropic free-standing single-crystalline VO{sub 2} nanostructures with a phase-transition temperature depressed to as low as 32 C from 67 C in the bulk. The observations here point to the importance of carefully controlling the stochiometry and dimensions of VO{sub 2} nanostructures to tune the phasetransition in this system.

In this work we review the formalism used in describing the thermodynamics of first-order phasetransitions from the point of view of maximum entropy inference. We present the concepts of transition temperature, latent heat and entropy difference between phases as emergent from the more fundamental concept of internal energy, after a statistical inference analysis. We explicitly demonstrate this point of view by making inferences on a simple game, resulting in the same formalism as in thermodynamical phasetransitions. We show that analogous quantities will inevitably arise in any problem of inferring the result of a yes/no question, given two different states of knowledge and information in the form of expectation values. This exposition may help to clarify the role of these thermodynamical quantities in the context of different first-order phasetransitions such as the case of magnetic Hamiltonians (e.g. the Potts model).

The purpose of this work is to understand the zero temperature phases and the phasetransitions of Heisenberg spin systems which can have an extensive, spontaneous magnetic moment, this entails a study of quantum transitions with an order parameter which is also a non-abelian conserved charge. To this end, we introduce and study a new class of lattice models of quantum rotors. We compute their mean-field phase diagrams and present continuum, quantum field-theoretic descriptions of their low energy properties in different regimes. We argue that, in spatial dimension {ital d}=1, the phasetransitions in itinerant Fermi systems are in the same universality class as the corresponding transitions in certain rotor models. We discuss implications of our results for itinerant fermions systems in higher {ital d} and for other physical systems. Copyright {copyright} 1996 Academic Press, Inc.

The thermodynamic properties of (CO2)N molecular aggregates of size N between 2 and 13 have been investigated. These crystallites exhibit well defined orientational order-disorder rotational transitions accompanied by a structural transition into a plastic crystallite phase. In addition, they exhibit melting and disassociation transitions. It is shown that the interpretation of experimental data, based upon dimer properties, depends crucially on these results. Equilibrium structures and orientations are also given.

This paper contains viewgraphs on quantum chromodynamic phase transformations during heavy ion collisions. Some topics briefly described are: finite T transitions of I molecule pairs; finite density transitions of diquarks polymers; and the softtest point of the equation of state as a source of discontinuous behavior as a function of collision energy or centrality.

The application of the sextic oscillator is proposed in the Bohr Hamiltonian to describe the phasetransition between the spherical and gamma-unstable shape phases. It is shown that exact results can be obtained for the energy eigenvalues and wave functions of the low-lying levels, as well as for electric quadrupole transition rates between them. The {sup 134}Ba nucleus and the even Ru isotope chain are considered as examples. Possible generalizations of the model are also outlined.

Since the beginning in 1986, the object of this project has been Structural PhaseTransitions (SPT) in real as opposed to ideal materials. The first stage of the study has been centered around the role of Point Defects in SPT`s. Our intent was to use the previous knowledge we had acquired in the study of point defects in non-transforming insulators and apply it to the study of point defects in insulators undergoing phasetransitions. In non-transforming insulators, point defects, in low concentrations, marginally affect the bulk properties of the host. It is nevertheless possible by resonance or relaxation methods to study the point defects themselves via their local motion. In transforming solids, however, close to a phasetransition, atomic motions become correlated over very large distances; there, even point defects far removed from one another can undergo correlated motions which may strongly affect the transition behavior of the host. Near a structural transition, the elastic properties win be most strongly affected so as to either raise or decrease the transition temperature, prevent the transition from taking place altogether, or simply modify its nature and the microstructure or domain structure of the resulting phase. One of the well known practical examples is calcium-stabilized zirconia in which the high temperature cubic phase is stabilized at room temperature with greatly improved mechanical properties.

Through this thesis, I investigate the way in which the electroweak phasetransition, and therefore the Higgs boson, bridges high energy particle physics and early universe cosmology; moreover, I argue that it is particularly interesting to explore this bridge today as experiments such as the Large Hadron Collider begin to uncover the nature of physics at the electroweak scale. I will discuss how measurements of the properties of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider allow one to determine the nature of the phasetransition that was responsible for electroweak symmetry breaking in the early universe. That information in turn will allow one to assess whether the asymmetry between the abundances of matter and anti-matter in the universe may have been generated during the electroweak phasetransition. Additionally, I will discuss the impact of the electroweak phasetransition on another cosmological relic: namely, the dark matter. Precise measurements of the mass and abundance of dark matter today yield further information about the nature of the electroweak phasetransition, in some scenarios. This information may be used to test the hypothesis that the cosmological constant, assumed to be a good model of dark energy, is finely tuned. In this way, I hope to demonstrate the importance of the electroweak phasetransition as a bridge between terrestrial tests of high energy physics and cosmological tests of the physics of the early universe.

We theoretically study the interaction of two time delayed, phase-locked, and nonresonant pulses with a two-level system in the strong field regime. The population transfer is shown to be extremely sensitive to the phase shift ϕ between the pulses, with efficient population transfer taking place only for ϕ close to π . This effect is explained in terms of nonadiabatic jump and rapid adiabatic passage phenomena.

We review our recent study on the polyamorphism of the liquid and glass states in a monatomic system, a two-scale spherical-symmetric Jagla model with both attractive and repulsive interactions. This potential with a parametrization for which crystallization can be avoided and both the glass transition and the liquid-liquid phasetransition are clearly separated, displays water-like anomalies as well as polyamorphism in both liquid and glassy states, providing a unique opportunity to study the interplay between the liquid-liquid phasetransition and the glass transition. Our study on a simple model may be useful in understanding recent studies of polyamorphism in metallic glasses. PMID:21614201

Materials with interacting magnetic degrees of freedom display a rich variety of magnetic behaviour that can lead to novel collective equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium phenomena. In equilibrium, thermodynamic phases appear with the associated phasetransitions providing a characteristic signature of the underlying collective behaviour. Here we create a thermally active artificial kagome spin ice that is made up of a large array of dipolar interacting nanomagnets and undergoes phasetransitions predicted by microscopic theory. We use low energy muon spectroscopy to probe the dynamic behaviour of the interacting nanomagnets and observe peaks in the muon relaxation rate that can be identified with the critical temperatures of the predicted phasetransitions. This provides experimental evidence that a frustrated magnetic metamaterial can be engineered to admit thermodynamic phases. PMID:26387444

Materials with interacting magnetic degrees of freedom display a rich variety of magnetic behaviour that can lead to novel collective equilibrium and out-of-equilibrium phenomena. In equilibrium, thermodynamic phases appear with the associated phasetransitions providing a characteristic signature of the underlying collective behaviour. Here we create a thermally active artificial kagome spin ice that is made up of a large array of dipolar interacting nanomagnets and undergoes phasetransitions predicted by microscopic theory. We use low energy muon spectroscopy to probe the dynamic behaviour of the interacting nanomagnets and observe peaks in the muon relaxation rate that can be identified with the critical temperatures of the predicted phasetransitions. This provides experimental evidence that a frustrated magnetic metamaterial can be engineered to admit thermodynamic phases. PMID:26387444

We use molecular dynamics simulations to study two- and three-dimensional models with the isotropic double-step potential which in addition to the hard core has a repulsive soft core of larger radius. Our results indicate that the presence of two characteristic repulsive distances (hard core and soft core) is sufficient to explain liquid anomalies and a liquid-liquid phasetransition, but these two phenomena may occur independently. Thus liquid-liquid transitions may exist in systems like liquid metals, regardless of the presence of the density anomaly. For 2D, we propose a model with a specific set of hard core and soft core parameters, that qualitatively reproduces the phase diagram and anomalies of liquid water. We identify two solid phases: a square crystal (high density phase), and a triangular crystal (low density phase) and discuss the relation between the anomalies of liquid and the polymorphism of the solid. Similarly to real water, our 2D system may have the second critical point in the metastable liquid phase beyond the freezing line. In 3D, we find several sets of parameters for which two fluid-fluid phasetransition lines exist: the first line between gas and liquid and the second line between high-density liquid (HDL) and low-density liquid (LDL). In all cases, the LDL phase shows no density anomaly in 3D. We relate the absence of the density anomaly with the positive slope of the LDL-HDL phasetransition line.

Critical freezing of molecular rotation in an achiral smectic phase, which leads to polar ordering through the second order paraelectric-antiferroelectric (Sm-A→Sm-APA) phasetransition is studied theoretically and experimentally. Strong softening of the polar mode in the Sm-A phase and highly intensive dielectric mode in the Sm-APA phase are observed due to weak antiferroelectric interactions in the system. In the Sm-APA phase the dielectric response behaves critically upon biasing by a dc electric field. Such a behavior is found general for the antiferroelectric smectic phase with significant quadrupolar interlayer coupling.

In this thesis, studies which concern two different subjects related to phasetransitions in fluids and crystalline solids are presented. Condensed matter formation, structure, and phasetransitions are modeled using molecular dynamics simulations of simple discontinuous potentials with attractive and repulsive interactions. Novel phase diagrams are proposed for quasicrystals, crystals, and liquids. In the first part of the thesis, the formation of a quasicrystal in a two dimensional monodisperse system is investigated using molecular dynamics simulations of hard sphere particles interacting via a two-dimensional square-well potential. It is found that for certain values of the square-well parameters more than one stable crystalline phase can form. By quenching the liquid phase at a very low temperature, an amorphous phase is obtained. When this the amorphous phase is heated, a quasicrystalline structure with five-fold symmetry forms. From estimations of the Helmholtz potentials of the stable crystalline phases and of the quasicrystal, it is concluded that within a specific temperature range, the observed quasicrystal phase can be the stable phase. The second part of the thesis concerns a study of the liquid-liquid phasetransition for a single-component system in three dimensions, interacting via an isotropic potential with a repulsive soft-core shoulder at short distance and an attractive well at an intermediate distance. The potential is similar to potentials used to describe such liquid systems as colloids, protein solutions, or liquid metals. It is shown that the phase diagram for such a potential can have two lines of first-order fluid-fluid phasetransitions: one separating a gas and a low-density liquid (LDL), and another between the LDL and a high-density liquid (HDL). Both phasetransition lines end in a critical point, a gas-LDL critical point and, depending on the potential parameters, either a gas-HDL critical point or a LDL-HDL critical point. A

Antibodies are very important proteins. Natural antibodies play essential role in the immune system of human body. Pharmaceutical antibodies are used as drugs. Antibodies are also indispensable tools in biomedical research and diagnostics. Recently, a number of observations of phasetransitions of pharmaceutical antibodies have been reported. These phasetransitions are undesirable from the perspective of colloid stability of drug solutions in processing and storage, but can be used for protein purification, X-ray crystallography, and improving pharmokinetics of drugs. Phasetransitions of antibodies can also take place in human body, particularly in multiple myeloma patients who overproduce monoclonal antibodies. These antibodies, in some cases, crystallize at body temperature and cause severe complications called cryoglobulinemia. I will present the results of our current studies on phasetransitions of both pharmaceutical antibodies and cryoglobulinemia-associated antibodies. These studies have shown that different antibodies have different propensity to undergo phasetransitions, but their phase behavior has universal features which are remarkably different from those of spherical proteins. I will discuss how studies of phase behavior can be useful in assessing colloid stability of pharmaceutical antibodies and in early diagnostics of cryoglobulinemia, as well as general implications of the fact that some antibodies can precipitate at physiological conditions.

We show that the previously proposed transition paths for high pressure phasetransitions for semiconductor from zinc blende (ZB) to rocksalt (RS) and from wurtzite (WZ) to rocksalt can be unified and can be extended to transitions from various tetrahedrally bonded polytypes to rocksalt [1]. Our first principle pseudopotential calculations with density functional and constrained relaxation methods on SiC showed that the ZB to RS transition has the lowest transition barrier. Our calculations on ZB to RS transition path for other semiconductors including II-VI, III-V and group IV semiconductors, show that the position and the geometry of the transition state, the state that correspond to the transition barrier, are universal and do not depend on the chemical components of the system [2]. We also extended the Landau phasetransition model to a ZB to RS transition by using a cosine function of the atom displacement as order parameter. The model shows that the position of the transition state does not depend on the coupling between the atom displacement and the strains of the lattice, which is the key point that the transition state is independent of the chemical components. [1] M. S. Miao and Walter R. L. Lambrecht, Phys. Rev. B 68, 092103 (2003). [2] M. S. Miao and Walter R. L. Lambrecht, Phys. Rev. Lett., accepted

We report Monte Carlo simulations of the self-assembly of supramolecular polymers based on a model of patchy particles. We find a first-order phasetransition, characterized by hysteresis and nucleation, toward a solid bundle of polymers, of length much greater than the average gas phase length. We argue that the bundling transition is the supramolecular equivalent of the sublimation transition, which results from a weak chain-chain interaction. We provide a qualitative equation of state that gives physical insight beyond the specific values of the parameters used in our simulations.

This paper examines phasetransitions in cerium during shock compression using PVDF gauges. A two-wave structure was observed with loading pressures of 4GPa - 12GPa. The wave structure consists of leading isentropic compression wave followed by a shock wave. This wave structure was formed as a result of the isomorphic (γ-α) phasetransition. The wave profiles exhibited no peculiarities resulting from the polymorphic transition (α-ɛ) as predicted by Elkin et. al [Proceedings of the International Conference VII Khariton Readings, Sarov 2005, p. 116].

The molecular reorientational dynamics in two phases of solid C60 with C-13 NMR measurements are characterized. A change in the nature of the dynamics, indicated by a change in kinetic parameters extracted from spin-lattice relaxation data, occurs at the phasetransition at 260 K. Above the transition, the molecules appear to execute continuous rotational diffusion; below the transition, they appear to jump between symmetry-equivalent orientations. This interpretation is consistent with the X-ray-diffraction results of Heiney et al. (1991) as well as the NMR relaxation and spectral data.

A mathematical model of ecoevolution is studied. The model treats ecosystems as large dimensional dynamical systems. The preying interaction term between species have the scale invariant form of x i λ xj1-λ. In addition, simple rules for addition and elimination of species are included. This model is called the "scale-invariant" model. The model makes it possible to construct ecosystems with thousands of species with a totally random invasion process, although it is not impossible when the interaction terms are the quadratic form of xixj like Lotka-Volterra equation. We studied the relation between the number of species and the interspecies interactions. As a result, it is shown the model can describe both simple ecosystems and diverse ecosystems, because this model has two phases. In one phase, the number of species remains in finite range. In the other phase, the number of species grows without limit.

We present a simulation and data analysis technique to investigate first-order phasetransitions and the associated transition barriers. The simulation technique is based on the real microcanonical ensemble where the sum of kinetic and potential energy is kept constant. The method is tested for the droplet condensation-evaporation transition in a Lennard-Jones system with up to 2048 particles at fixed density, using simple Metropolis-like sampling combined with a replica-exchange scheme. Our investigation of the microcanonical ensemble properties reveals that the associated transition barrier is significantly lower than in the canonical counterpart. Along the line of investigating the microcanonical ensemble behavior, we develop a framework for general ensemble evaluations. This framework is based on a clear separation between system-related and ensemble-related properties, which can be exploited to specifically tailor artificial ensembles suitable for first-order phasetransitions.

We present a simulation and data analysis technique to investigate first-order phasetransitions and the associated transition barriers. The simulation technique is based on the real microcanonical ensemble where the sum of kinetic and potential energy is kept constant. The method is tested for the droplet condensation-evaporation transition in a Lennard-Jones system with up to 2048 particles at fixed density, using simple Metropolis-like sampling combined with a replica-exchange scheme. Our investigation of the microcanonical ensemble properties reveals that the associated transition barrier is significantly lower than in the canonical counterpart. Along the line of investigating the microcanonical ensemble behavior, we develop a framework for general ensemble evaluations. This framework is based on a clear separation between system-related and ensemble-related properties, which can be exploited to specifically tailor artificial ensembles suitable for first-order phasetransitions. PMID:27627238

The evolution of many kinetic processes in 1+1 (space-time) dimensions results in 2 D directed percolative landscapes. The active phases of these models possess numerous hidden geometric orders characterized by various types of large-scale and/or coarse-grained percolative backbones that we define. For the patterns originated in the classical directed percolation (DP) and contact process we show from the Monte Carlo simulation data that these percolative backbones emerge at specific critical points as a result of continuous phasetransitions. These geometric transitions belong to the DP universality class and their nonlocal order parameters are the capacities of corresponding backbones. The multitude of conceivable percolative backbones implies the existence of infinite cascades of such geometric transitions in the kinetic processes considered. We present simple arguments to support the conjecture that such cascades of transitions are a generic feature of percolation as well as of many other transitions with nonlocal order parameters.

Spin fluctuation and transition have always been one of the central topics of magnetism and condensed matter science. Experimentally, the spin fluctuation is found transcribed onto scattering intensity in the neutron-scattering process, which is represented by dynamical magnetic susceptibility and maximized at phasetransitions. Importantly, a neutron carries spin without electric charge, and therefore it can bring spin into a sample without being disturbed by electric energy. However, large facilities such as a nuclear reactor are necessary. Here we show that spin pumping, frequently used in nanoscale spintronic devices, provides a desktop microprobe for spin transition; spin current is a flux of spin without an electric charge and its transport reflects spin excitation. We demonstrate detection of antiferromagnetic transition in ultra-thin CoO films via frequency-dependent spin-current transmission measurements, which provides a versatile probe for phasetransition in an electric manner in minute devices. PMID:27573443

Observing solid-solid phasetransitions in-situ with sufficient temporal and spatial resolution is a great challenge, and is often only possible via computer simulations or in model systems. Recently, a study of polymeric colloidal particles, where the particles mimic atoms, revealed an intermediate liquid state in the transition from one solid to another. While not yet observed there, this finding suggests that such phenomena may also occur in metals and alloys. Here we present experimental evidence for a solid-solid transition via the formation of a metastable liquid in a 'real' atomic system. We observe this transition in a bulk glass-forming metallic system in-situ using fast differential scanning calorimetry. We investigate the corresponding transformation kinetics and discuss the underlying thermodynamics. The mechanism is likely to be a feature of many metallic glasses and metals in general, and may provide further insight into phasetransition theory. PMID:27103085

The evolution of many kinetic processes in 1+1 (space-time) dimensions results in 2D directed percolative landscapes. The active phases of these models possess numerous hidden geometric orders characterized by various types of large-scale and/or coarse-grained percolative backbones that we define. For the patterns originated in the classical directed percolation (DP) and contact process we show from the Monte Carlo simulation data that these percolative backbones emerge at specific critical points as a result of continuous phasetransitions. These geometric transitions belong to the DP universality class and their nonlocal order parameters are the capacities of corresponding backbones. The multitude of conceivable percolative backbones implies the existence of infinite cascades of such geometric transitions in the kinetic processes considered. We present simple arguments to support the conjecture that such cascades of transitions are a generic feature of percolation as well as of many other transitions with nonlocal order parameters. PMID:26871019

Observing solid–solid phasetransitions in-situ with sufficient temporal and spatial resolution is a great challenge, and is often only possible via computer simulations or in model systems. Recently, a study of polymeric colloidal particles, where the particles mimic atoms, revealed an intermediate liquid state in the transition from one solid to another. While not yet observed there, this finding suggests that such phenomena may also occur in metals and alloys. Here we present experimental evidence for a solid–solid transition via the formation of a metastable liquid in a ‘real' atomic system. We observe this transition in a bulk glass-forming metallic system in-situ using fast differential scanning calorimetry. We investigate the corresponding transformation kinetics and discuss the underlying thermodynamics. The mechanism is likely to be a feature of many metallic glasses and metals in general, and may provide further insight into phasetransition theory. PMID:27103085

Spin fluctuation and transition have always been one of the central topics of magnetism and condensed matter science. Experimentally, the spin fluctuation is found transcribed onto scattering intensity in the neutron-scattering process, which is represented by dynamical magnetic susceptibility and maximized at phasetransitions. Importantly, a neutron carries spin without electric charge, and therefore it can bring spin into a sample without being disturbed by electric energy. However, large facilities such as a nuclear reactor are necessary. Here we present that spin pumping, frequently used in nanoscale spintronic devices, provides a desktop microprobe for spin transition; spin current is amore » flux of spin without an electric charge and its transport reflects spin excitation. Additionally, we demonstrate detection of antiferromagnetic transition in ultra-thin CoO films via frequency-dependent spin-current transmission measurements, which provides a versatile probe for phasetransition in an electric manner in minute devices.« less

The behavior of substorms as sudden transitions of the magnetosphere is studied using the Bargatze et al. [1985] data set of the solar wind induced electric field vBs and the auroral electrojet index AL. The data set is divided into three subsets representing different levels of activity, and they are studied using the singular spectrum analysis. The points representing the evolution of the magnetosphere in the subspace of the eigenvectors corresponding to the three largest eigenvalues can be approximated by two-dimensional manifolds with a relative deviation of 10-20%. For the first two subsets corresponding to small and medium activity levels the manifolds have a pleated structure typical of the cusp catastrophe. The dynamics of the magnetosphere near these pleated structures resembles the hysteresis phenomenon typical of first-order phasetransitions. The reconstructed manifold is similar to the ``temperature-pressure-density'' diagrams of equilibrium phasetransitions. The singular spectra of vBs, AL, and combined data have the power law dependence typical of second-order phasetransitions and self-organized criticality. The magnetosphere thus exhibits the signatures of both self-organization and self-organized criticality. It is concluded that the magnetospheric substorm is neither a pure catastrophe of the low-dimensional system nor a random set of avalanches of different scales described by the simple sandpile models. The substorms behave like nonequilibrium phasetransitions, with features of both first- and second-order phasetransitions.

Recent experiments have produced mounting evidence of Majorana zero modes in nanowire-superconductor hybrids. Signatures of an expected topological phasetransition accompanying the onset of these modes nevertheless remain elusive. We investigate a fundamental question concerning this issue: Do well-formed Majorana modes necessarily entail a sharp phasetransition in these setups? Assuming reasonable parameters, we argue that finite-size effects can dramatically smooth this putative transition into a crossover, even in systems large enough to support well-localized Majorana modes. We propose overcoming such finite-size effects by examining the behavior of low-lying excited states through tunneling spectroscopy. In particular, the excited-state energies exhibit characteristic field and density dependence, and scaling with system size, that expose an approaching topological phasetransition. We suggest several experiments for extracting the predicted behavior. As a useful byproduct, the protocols also allow one to measure the wire's spin-orbit coupling directly in its superconducting environment.

The effect of high pressure on the crystal structure of thiourea dioxide has been investigated by Raman spectroscopy and angle-dispersive X-ray diffraction (ADXRD) in a diamond anvil cell up to 10.3 GPa. The marked changes in the Raman spectra at 3.7 GPa strongly indicated a structural phasetransition associated with the distortions of hydrogen bonding. There were no further changes up to the maximum pressure of 10.3 GPa and the observed transition was completely reversible when the system was brought back to ambient pressure. This transition was further confirmed by the changes of ADXRD spectra. The high-pressure phase was indexed and refined to an orthorhombic structure with a possible space group Pbam. The results from the first-principles calculations suggested that this phasetransition was mainly related to the changes of hydrogen-bonded networks in thiourea dioxide.

The cytoplasm exhibits all of the signature characteristics of a gel. The thesis put forth here is that the cytoplasm's gel-like character is central to the generation of biological movement. In artificial gels, a common vehicle for generating movement is the polymer-gel phase-transition. By undergoing phase-transition, gels produce motion of both solvent and solutes. It is argued that cells do the same. Three examples are given: the secretory system, the muscle contraction system and the biological streaming system. In each case it is shown that the characteristic motions may be created as proteins and water undergo transition from an expanded, hydrated state to a contracted, dehydrated state--or the reverse. These changes shift solutes and solvent in a characteristic way that depends on the respective organelle's structure. Phase-transitions are simple, powerful mechanisms that may be responsible for many, if not all, biological motions. PMID:11728101

We examine domain wall formulation in late time phasetransitions. We find that in the invisible axion domain wall phenomenon, thermal effects alone are insufficient to drive different parts of the disconnected vacuum manifold. This suggests that domain walls do not form unless either there is some supplemental (but perhaps not unreasonable) dynamics to localize the scalar field responsible for the phasetransition to the low temperature maximum (to an extraordinary precision) before the onset of the phasetransition, or there is some non-thermal mechanism to produce large fluctuations in the scalar field. The fact that domain wall production is not a robust prediction of late time transitions may suggest future directions in model building.

We use laser-cooled ion Coulomb crystals in the well-controlled environment of a harmonic radiofrequency ion trap to investigate phasetransitions and defect formation. Topological defects in ion Coulomb crystals (kinks) have been recently proposed for studies of nonlinear physics with solitons and as carriers of quantum information. Defects form when a symmetry breaking phasetransition is crossed non-adiabatically. For a second order phasetransition, the Kibble-Zurek mechanism predicts that the formation of these defects follows a power law scaling in the rate of the transition. We demonstrate a scaling of defect density and describe kink dynamics and stability. We further discuss the implementation of mass defects and electric fields as first steps toward controlled kink preparation and manipulation.

For several surfactant and lipid systems, it is crucial to understand how hydration influences the physical and chemical properties. When humidity changes, it affects the degree of hydration by adding or removing water molecules. In many cases, this process induces transitions between liquid crystalline phases. This phenomenon is of general interest for numerous applications simply because of the fact that humidity variations are ubiquitous. Of particular interest are hydration-induced phasetransitions in amphiphilic films, which in many cases appear as the frontier toward a vapor phase with changing humidity. Considering this, it is important to characterize the film thickness needed for the formation of 3D liquid crystalline phases and the lyotropic phase behavior of this kind of film. In this work, we study this issue by employing a recently developed method based on the humidity scanning quartz crystal microbalance with dissipation monitoring (HS QCM-D), which enables continuous scanning of the film hydration. We investigate five surfactants films (DDAO, DTAC, CTAC, SDS, and n-octylβ-d-glucoside) and one lipid film (monoolein) and show that HS QCM-D enables the fast characterization of hydration-induced phasetransitions with small samples. Film thicknesses range from tens to hundreds of nanometers, and clear phasetransitions are observed in all cases. It is shown that phasetransitions in films occur at the same water activities as for corresponding bulk samples. This allows us to conclude that surfactant and lipid films, with a thickness of as low as 50 nm, are in fact assembled as 3D-structured liquid crystalline phases. Furthermore, liquid crystalline phases of surfactant films show liquidlike behavior, which decreases the accuracy of the absorbed water mass measurement. On the other hand, the monoolein lipid forms more rigid liquid crystalline films, allowing for an accurate determination of the water sorption isotherm, which is also true for the

High pressure generally changes all of the properties of substances, leading to phasetransitions in many cases. This paper reviews how such phase changes reveal themselves in x-ray absorption spectra. Examples are given using the salts NaBr, RbCl, CuBr, and SnSe. (DLC)

In addition to the stable silica polymorph quartz, several metastable silica phases are present in Yucca Mountain. The conversion of these phases to quartz is accompanied by volume reduction and a decrease in the aqueous silica activity, which may destabilize clinoptilolite and mordenite. The primary reaction sequence for the silica phases is from opal or glass to disordered opal-CT, followed by ordering of the opal-CT and finally by the crystallization of quartz. The ordering of opal-CT takes place in the solid state, whereas the conversion of opal-CT takes place through dissolution-reprecipitation involving the aqueous phase. It is proposed that the rate of conversion of opal-CT to quartz is controlled by diffusion of defects out of a disordered surface layer formed on the crystallizing quartz. The reaction rates are observed to be dependent on temperature, pressure, degree of supersaturation, and pH. Rate equations selected from the literature appear to be consistent with observations at Yucca Mountain.

The fluid flow in cavity type systems, in which one of the walls is moving while the others are stationary, is analyzed using computational modeling, under the assumption of no-slip boundary conditions. By iteratively adapting the mesh used, we are able to map with high spatial resolution the complex flow structures that form at the two types of corners of the cavity, i.e. (i) corners defined by stationary walls, and (ii) corners defined by a stationary and the moving wall, respectively. For the structures that form in the vicinity of the fixed points defined by the corners, we observe that the flow magnitudes and spatial distributions follow scaling laws similar with critical phenomena. In particular, the behavior at the first type of corner is analogous to a to a first-order transition (discontinuity) point, while the behavior at the second one is analogous to a thermodynamic critical point (second-order transition). These results provide a unique insight into the solution to Navier-Stokes equations for cavity flows.

We present ab initio calculations of the high-pressure phase diagrams of important planetary materials such as CO2, MgSiO3, and MgO. For CO2, we predict a series of distinct liquid phases over a wide pressure (P) and temperature (T) range, including a first-order transition to a dense polymer liquid. We have computed finite-temperature free energies of liquid and solid CO2 phases to determine the melting curve beyond existing measurements and investigate possible phase separation transitions. The interaction of these phase boundaries with the mantle geotherm will also be discussed. Furthermore, we find evidence for a vast pressure-temperature regime where molten MgSiO3 decomposes into liquid SiO2 and solid MgO, with a volume change of approximately 1.2 percent. The demixing transition is driven by the crystallization of MgO ? the reaction only occurs below the high-pressure MgO melting curve. The predicted transition pressure at 10,000 K is in close proximity to an anomaly reported in recent laser-driven shock experiments of MgSiO3. We also present new results for the high-pressure melting curve of MgO and its B1-B2 solid phasetransition, with a triple point near 364 GPa and 12,000 K.

Dimensionality play significant role on ‘phase transitions’. Fluids in macroscopic confinement (bulk or 3-Dimensional, 3D) do not show significant changes in their phasetransition properties with extent of confinement, since the number of molecules away from the surrounding surfaces is astronomically higher than the number of molecules in close proximity of the confining surfaces. In microscopic confinement (quasi 3D to quasi-2D), however, the number of molecules away from the close proximity of the surface is not as high as is the case with macroscopic (3D) confinement. Hence, under the same thermodynamic conditions ‘phase transition’ properties at microscopic confinement may not remain the same as the macroscopic or 3D values. Phasetransitions at extremely small scale become very sensitive to the dimensions as well as the surface characteristics of the system. In this work our investigations reveal the effect of dimensionality on the phasetransition from 3D to quasi-2D to 2D behavior. We have used grand canonical transition matrix Monte Carlo simulation to understand the vapor–liquid phasetransitions from 3D to quasi-2D behavior. Such studies can be helpful in understanding and controlling the fluid film behaviour confined between solid surfaces of few molecular diameters, for example, in lubrication applications.

A model for the equilibrium coupling of an ion system with varying initial hard-sphere Rydberg blockade correlations is used to quantify the suppression of disorder-induced heating in Coulomb-expanding cold ion bunches. We show that bunches with experimentally achievable blockade parameters have an emittance reduced by a factor of 2.6 and increased focusability and brightness compared to a disordered bunch. Demonstrating suppression of disorder-induced heating is an important step in the development of techniques for the creation of beam sources with sufficient phase-space density for ultrafast, single-shot coherent diffractive imaging.

We explore topological phasetransition, which involves the energy spectra of field-induced spin-density-wave (FISDW) states in quasi-one dimensional (Q1D) organic conductors, using an extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. We show that, in presence of half magnetic-flux FISDW state, the system exhibits topologically nontrivial phases, which can be characterized by a nonzero Chern number. The nontrivial evolution of the bulk bands with chemical potential in a topological phasetransition is discussed. We show that the system can have a similar phase diagram which is discussed in the Haldane’s model. We suggest that the topological feature should be tested experimentally in this organic system. These studies enrich the theoretical research on topologically nontrivial phases in the Q1D lattice system as compared to the Haldane topological phase appearing in the two-dimensional lattices. PMID:26612317

We explore topological phasetransition, which involves the energy spectra of field-induced spin-density-wave (FISDW) states in quasi-one dimensional (Q1D) organic conductors, using an extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. We show that, in presence of half magnetic-flux FISDW state, the system exhibits topologically nontrivial phases, which can be characterized by a nonzero Chern number. The nontrivial evolution of the bulk bands with chemical potential in a topological phasetransition is discussed. We show that the system can have a similar phase diagram which is discussed in the Haldane's model. We suggest that the topological feature should be tested experimentally in this organic system. These studies enrich the theoretical research on topologically nontrivial phases in the Q1D lattice system as compared to the Haldane topological phase appearing in the two-dimensional lattices. PMID:26612317

We explore topological phasetransition, which involves the energy spectra of field-induced spin-density-wave (FISDW) states in quasi-one dimensional (Q1D) organic conductors, using an extended Su-Schrieffer-Heeger (SSH) model. We show that, in presence of half magnetic-flux FISDW state, the system exhibits topologically nontrivial phases, which can be characterized by a nonzero Chern number. The nontrivial evolution of the bulk bands with chemical potential in a topological phasetransition is discussed. We show that the system can have a similar phase diagram which is discussed in the Haldane’s model. We suggest that the topological feature should be tested experimentally in this organic system. These studies enrich the theoretical research on topologically nontrivial phases in the Q1D lattice system as compared to the Haldane topological phase appearing in the two-dimensional lattices.

We demonstrate that the gauged BPS baby Skyrme model with a double vacuum potential allows for phasetransitions from a non-solitonic to a solitonic phase, where the latter corresponds to a ferromagnetic liquid. Such a transition can be generated by increasing the external pressure P or by turning on an external magnetic field H. As a consequence, the topological phase where gauged BPS baby skyrmions exist, is a higher density phase. For smaller densities, obtained for smaller values of P and H, a phase without solitons is reached. We find the critical line in the P, H parameter space. Furthermore, in the soliton phase, we find the equation of state for the baby skyrmion matter V = V( P,H) at zero temperature, where V is the "volume", i.e., area of the solitons.

We study the gravity duals of supercurrent solutions in the anti-de Sitter (AdS) black hole background with general phase structure to describe both the first- and the second-order phasetransitions at finite temperature in strongly interacting systems. We argue that the conductivity and the pair susceptibility can be possible phenomenological indications to distinguish the order of phasetransitions. We extend our discussion to the AdS soliton configuration. Different from the black hole spacetime, in the probe limit, the first-order phasetransition cannot be brought by introducing the spatial component of the vector potential of the gauge field in the AdS soliton background.

The food industry crystallizes fats under different conditions of temperature and shear to obtain products with desired crystalline phases. Milk fat, palm oil, cocoa butter and chocolate were crystallized from the melt in a temperature controlled Couette cell. Synchrotron x-ray diffraction studies were conducted to examine the role of shear on the phasetransitions seen in edible fats. The shear forces on the crystals induced acceleration of the alpha to beta-prime phasetransition with increasing shear rate in milk fat and palm oil. The increase was slow at low shear rates and became very strong above 360 s-1. In cocoa butter the acceleration between beta-prime-III and beta-V phasetransition increased until a maximum of at 360 s-1, and then decreased, showing competition between enhanced heat transfer and viscous heat generation.

We carry out a theoretical study on the isotropic-nematic phasetransition and phase separation in amyloid fibril solutions. Borrowing the thermodynamic model employed in the study of cylindrical micelles, we investigate the variations in the fibril length distribution and phase behavior with respect to changes in the protein concentration, fibril’s rigidity, and binding energy. We then relate our theoretical findings to the nematic ordering experimentally observed in Hen Lysozyme fibril solution.

3D convection for the spinel to perovskite phase change has been simulated numerically. Results for Rayleigh (Ra) numbers of 0(10 exp 6) show intermittent layering with a strong robust plume rising through the phase boundary. Many descending instabilities are deflected but merging cold sheets come together at a junction. A pool of cold material accumulates underneath in the phase-transition zone. A strong gravitational instability results, which precipitates a rapid and massive discharge of upper-mantle material.

Experiments and simulations are reported for a monolayer plasma crystal that is disturbed by an extra particle moving in a plane below the monolayer. Numerical simulations and experiments are performed to find an explanation for the motion of the extra particle. The simulations take into account the ion wakefield downstream of the monolayer of particles, in the presence of ion flow. In the experiment, the orbit is straight at low gas pressures, but with higher damping it is crooked and less energetic. The same trend is observed in the simulations, supporting a conclusion that the wakefield is responsible for the particle acceleration. The simulation reveals that the energy of the extra particle exhibits distinctive transitions, between three regimes.

We discuss an idea for how accreting millisecond pulsars could contribute to the understanding of the QCD phasetransition in the high-density nuclear matter equation of state (EoS). It is based on two ingredients, the first one being a ''phase diagram'' of rapidly rotating compact star configurations in the plane of spin frequency and mass, determined with state-of-the-art hybrid equations of state, allowing for a transition to color superconducting quark matter. The second is the study of spin-up and accretion evolution in this phase diagram. We show that the quark matter phasetransition leads to a characteristic line in the {omega}-M plane, the phase border between neutron stars and hybrid stars with a quark matter core. Along this line a drop in the pulsar's moment of inertia entails a waiting point phenomenon in the accreting millisecond pulsar (AMXP) evolution: most of these objects should therefore be found along the phase border in the {omega}-M plane, which may be viewed as the AMXP analog of the main sequence in the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram for normal stars. In order to prove the existence of a high-density phasetransition in the cores of compact stars we need population statistics for AMXPs with sufficiently accurate determination of their masses, spin frequencies and magnetic fields.

Cells are organized on length scales ranging from angstrom to micrometers. However, the mechanisms by which angstrom-scale molecular properties are translated to micrometer-scale macroscopic properties are not well understood. Here we show that interactions between diverse synthetic, multivalent macromolecules (including multi-domain proteins and RNA) produce sharp liquid-liquid-demixing phase separations, generating micrometer-sized liquid droplets in aqueous solution. This macroscopic transition corresponds to a molecular transition between small complexes and large, dynamic supramolecular polymers. The concentrations needed for phasetransition are directly related to the valency of the interacting species. In the case of the actin-regulatory protein called neural Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (N-WASP) interacting with its established biological partners NCK and phosphorylated nephrin1, the phasetransition corresponds to a sharp increase in activity towards an actin nucleation factor, the Arp2/3 complex. The transition is governed by the degree of phosphorylation of nephrin, explaining how this property of the system can be controlled to regulatory effect by kinases. The widespread occurrence of multivalent systems suggests that phasetransitions may be used to spatially organize and biochemically regulate information throughout biology.

Cells are organized on length scales ranging from ångström to micrometres. However, the mechanisms by which ångström-scale molecular properties are translated to micrometre-scale macroscopic properties are not well understood. Here we show that interactions between diverse synthetic, multivalent macromolecules (including multi-domain proteins and RNA) produce sharp liquid-liquid-demixing phase separations, generating micrometre-sized liquid droplets in aqueous solution. This macroscopic transition corresponds to a molecular transition between small complexes and large, dynamic supramolecular polymers. The concentrations needed for phasetransition are directly related to the valency of the interacting species. In the case of the actin-regulatory protein called neural Wiskott-Aldrich syndrome protein (N-WASP) interacting with its established biological partners NCK and phosphorylated nephrin, the phasetransition corresponds to a sharp increase in activity towards an actin nucleation factor, the Arp2/3 complex. The transition is governed by the degree of phosphorylation of nephrin, explaining how this property of the system can be controlled to regulatory effect by kinases. The widespread occurrence of multivalent systems suggests that phasetransitions may be used to spatially organize and biochemically regulate information throughout biology. PMID:22398450

It is entirely plausible under reasonable conditions, that a first-order QCD phasetransition occurred from quarks to hadrons when the universe was about a microsecond old. Relics, if there be any, after the quark-hadron phasetransition are the most deciding signatures of the phasetransition. It is shown in this paper that quark nuggets, the possible relics of first-order QCD phasetransitions with baryon number larger than 1043 will survive the entire history of the universe up to now and can be considered as a candidate for the cold dark matter. The spin down core of the neutron star on the high density low temperature end of the QCD phase diagram initiates transition from hadrons to quarks. As the star spins down, the size of the core goes on increasing. Recently discovered massive Pulsar PSRJ 1614-2230 with a mass of 1.97 ± 0.04M⊙ most likely has a strongly interacting core. What possible observables can there be from these neutron stars?

This paper is the first in a series that will look at the theory of phasetransitions from the perspectives of physics and the philosophy of science. The series will consider a group of related concepts derived from condensed matter and statistical physics. The key technical ideas go under the names of "singularity", "order parameter", "mean field theory", "variational method", "correlation length", "universality class", "scale changes", and "renormalization". The first four of these will be considered here. In a less technical vein, the question here is how can matter, ordinary matter, support a diversity of forms. We see this diversity each time we observe ice in contact with liquid water or see water vapor (steam) come up from a pot of heated water. Different phases can be qualitatively different in that walking on ice is well within human capacity, but walking on liquid water is proverbially forbidden to ordinary humans. These differences have been apparent to humankind for millennia, but only brought within the domain of scientific understanding since the 1880s. A phasetransition is a change from one behavior to another. A first order phasetransition involves a discontinuous jump in some statistical variable. The discontinuous property is called the order parameter. Each phasetransition has its own order parameter. The possible order parameters range over a tremendous variety of physical properties. These properties include the density of a liquid-gas transition, the magnetization in a ferromagnet, the size of a connected cluster in a percolation transition, and a condensate wave function in a superfluid or superconductor. A continuous transition occurs when the discontinuity in the jump approaches zero. This article is about statistical mechanics and the development of mean field theory as a basis for a partial understanding of phasetransition phenomena. Much of the material in this review was first prepared for the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and

The present manuscript describes kinetic behaviour of the glass transition and non-equilibrium features of the "Nematic-Isotropic" (N-I) phasetransition of a well known liquid crystalline material N-(4-methoxybenzylidene)-4-butylaniline from the effects of heating rate and initial temperature on the transitions, through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), Fourier transform infrared and fluorescence spectroscopy. Around the vicinity of the glass transition temperature (Tg), while only a change in the baseline of the ΔCp vs T curve is observed for heating rate (β) > 5 K min-1, consistent with a glass transition, a clear peak for β ≤ 5 K min-1 and the rapid reduction in the ΔCp value from the former to the latter rate correspond to an order-disorder transition and a transition from ergodic to non-ergodic behaviour. The ln β vs 1000/T curve for the glass transition shows convex Arrhenius behaviour that can be explained very well by a purely entropic activation barrier [Dan et al., Eur. Phys. Lett. 108, 36007 (2014)]. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy indicates sudden freezing of the out-of-plane distortion vibrations of the benzene rings around the glass transition temperature and a considerable red shift indicating enhanced coplanarity of the benzene rings and, consequently, enhancement in the molecular ordering compared to room temperature. We further provide a direct experimental evidence of the non-equilibrium nature of the N-I transition through the dependence of this transition temperature (TNI) and associated enthalpy change (ΔH) on the initial temperature (at fixed β-values) for the DSC scans. A plausible qualitative explanation based on Mesquita's extension of Landau-deGennes theory [O. N. de Mesquita, Braz. J. Phys. 28, 257 (1998)] has been put forward. The change in the molecular ordering from nematic to isotropic phase has been investigated through fluorescence anisotropy measurements where the order parameter, quantified by the

Faraday rotation is widely used to study magnetic dynamics. We designed a scheme of Faraday rotation echo spectroscopy (FRES) that can be used to study spin noise dynamics in transparent materials by measuring the fluctuation of Faraday rotation angle. The FRES suppresses the static part of the noise and reveal the quantum fluctuations at relatively high temperature, which shares the same idea of the spin echo technique in nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). We tested our theory on a rare-earth compound LiHoF4. The quantum fluctuations obtained by FRES give an enhanced feature at the phase boundary. The FRES can be straightforwardly generalized to more complicated configurations that correspond to more complex dynamical decoupling sequences in NMR and electron spin resonance, which may give us more extensive information on the structural and dynamical properties of magnetic materials. This work was supported by Hong Kong RGC 402410 and CUHK FIS.

We investigate the microstructural and microrheological response to a tracer particle of a two-dimensional colloidal suspension under thermodynamic conditions close to a liquid-gas phase boundary. On the liquid side of the binodal, increasing the velocity of the (repulsive) tracer leads to the development of a pronounced cavitation bubble, within which the concentration of colloidal particles is strongly depleted. The tendency of the liquid to cavitate is characterized by a dimensionless “colloidal cavitation” number. On the gas side of the binodal, a pulled (attractive) tracer leaves behind it an extended trail of colloidal liquid, arising from downstream advection of a wetting layer on its surface. For both situations the velocity dependent friction is calculated.

We study the dynamics of two initially correlated qubits coupled to their own separate spin baths modeled by an XY spin chain and find the explicit expression of the quantum discord for the system. A sudden transition is found to exist between classical and quantum decoherence by choosing certain initial states. We show that the sudden transition happens near the critical point, which provides an alternative way to characterize the quantum phasetransition. Furthermore, we propose a scheme to prolong the transition time of the quantum discord by applying the bang-bang pulses.

The postperovskite phase of ZnGeO3 was confirmed by laser heating experiments of the perovskite phase under 110-130 GPa at high temperature. Ab initio calculations indicated that the phasetransition occurs at 133 GPa at 0 K. This postperovskite transition pressure is significantly higher than those reported for other germanates, such as MnGeO3 and MgGeO3. The comparative crystal chemistry of the perovskite-to-postperovskite transition suggests that a relatively elongated b-axis in the low-pressure range resulted in the delay in the transition to the postperovskite phase. Similar to most GdFeO3-type perovskites that transform to the CaIrO3-type postperovskite phase, ZnGeO3 perovskite eventually transformed to the CaIrO3-type postperovskite phase at a critical rotational angle of the GeO6 octahedron. The formation of the postperovskite structure at a very low critical rotational angle for MnGeO3 suggests that relatively large divalent cations likely break down the corner-sharing GeO6 frameworks without a large rotation of GeO6 to form the postperovskite phase. PMID:25310272

The Praseodymium-monopnictides compounds have been found to undergo transition from their initial NaCl-type structure to high pressure body centered tetragonal (BCT) structure (distorted CsCl-type P4/mmm) using CTIP model. The calculated values of cohesive energy, lattice constant, phasetransition pressure, relative volume collapse agree well with the available measured data and better than those computed by earlier workers.

The natural log of experimental nuclear level densities at low energy is linear with energy. This can be interpreted in terms of a nearly 1st order phasetransition from a superfluid to an ideal gas of quasi particles. The transition temperature coincides with the BCS critical temperature and yields gap parameters in good agreement with the values extracted from even- odd mass differences from rotational states. This converging evidence supports the relevance of the BCS theory to atomic nuclei.

The motion of several self-propelled boats in a narrow channel displays spontaneous pattern formation and kinetic phasetransitions. In contrast with previous studies on self-propelled particles, this model does not require stochastic fluctuations and it is experimentally accessible. By varying the viscosity in the system, it is possible to form either a stationary state, correlated or uncorrelated oscillations, or unidirectional flow. Here, we describe and analyze these self organized patterns and their transitions.

The lanthanum compounds have been found to undergo transition from their initial NaCl-type structure to high pressure body centered tetragonal (BCT) structure (distorted CsCl-type P4/mmm) using CTIP model. The calculated values of cohesive energy, lattice constant, phasetransition pressure, relative volume collapse agree well with the available measured data and better than those computed by earlier workers.

We study the poles of the retarded Green's functions of strongly coupled field theories exhibiting a variety of phase structures from a crossover up to a first order phasetransition. These theories are modeled by a dual gravitational description. The poles of the holographic Green's functions appear at the frequencies of the quasinormal modes of the dual black hole background. We establish that near the transition, in all cases considered, the applicability of a hydrodynamic description breaks down already at lower momenta than in the conformal case. We establish the appearance of the spinodal region in the case of the first order phasetransition at temperatures for which the speed of sound squared is negative. An estimate of the preferential scale attained by the unstable modes is also given. We additionally observe a novel diffusive regime for sound modes for a range of wavelengths. PMID:27610844

Phasetransitions play an important role in biology. Specifically the thermodynamic stability of internal membrane proteins is an important issue of biophysics. Purple membrane from Halobacterium halobium contain bacteriorhodopsin (bR), an integral protein 70-80% of whole mass is intramembraneous. There are heated debates in the field about the parameters of thermal denaturation of bR, such as the denaturation temperature, enthalpy etc. Recently, bR was proposed as a component of biomolecular electronics. Thus, reliable information about the phasetransitions of supported samples of bR membranes is necessary. Phasetransitions in polymer/biopolymer materials are associated with the large changes in mechanical properties of the samples. We developed the technique for the measurements of the temperature dependence of the mechanical properties with high spatial resolution. This technique is based on the measurements of the contact stiffness of the atomic force microscopy tip -- sample system as a function of temperature.

A century ago, it was predicted that the first significant digit appearing in a data would be nonuniformly distributed, with the number one appearing with the highest frequency. This law goes by the name of Benford's law. It holds for data ranging from infectious-disease cases to national greenhouse gas emissions. Quantum phasetransitions are cooperative phenomena where qualitative changes occur in many-body systems at zero temperature. We show that the century-old Benford's law can detect quantum phasetransitions, much like it detects earthquakes. Therefore, being certainly of very different physical origins, seismic activity and quantum cooperative phenomena may be detected by similar methods. The result has immediate implications in precise measurements in experiments in general, and for realizable quantum computers in particular. It shows that estimation of the first significant digit of measured physical observables is enough to detect the presence of quantum phasetransitions in macroscopic systems.

In this paper, we have studied thermodynamics of a black hole in massive gravity in the canonical ensemble. The massive gravity theory in consideration here has a massive graviton due to Lorentz symmetry breaking. The black hole studied here has a scalar charge due to the massive graviton and is asymptotically anti-de Sitter (AdS). We have computed various thermodynamical quantities such as temperature, specific heat and free energy. Both the local and global stability of the black hole are studied by observing the behavior of the specific heat and the free energy. We have observed that there is a first-order phasetransition between small (SBH) and large black hole (LBH) for a certain range of the scalar charge. This phasetransition is similar to the liquid/gas phasetransition at constant temperature for a van der Waals fluid. The coexistence curves for the SBH and LBH branches are also discussed in detail.

We consider D7-branes probing several classes of Type IIB supergravity backgrounds, and study the classical problem of finding equilibrium configurations for the embedding functions. This is a method employed to model chiral symmetry breaking in the gravity dual of a strongly coupled, confining gauge theory. We unveil and discuss a new type of phasetransition appearing in the gravity systems, which is similar in nature and meaning to bulk phasetransitions on the lattice. The existence of this genre of phasetransition puts a new, intrinsic limit on the region of parameter space which can be used to study the physics of the dual field theory. We complete the analysis of D7 embeddings in wrapped-D5 supergravity backgrounds, and explain in what cases chiral-symmetry breaking is sensibly modeled by the gravity construction.

It is believed that first-order phasetransitions at or around the GUT scale will produce high-frequency gravitational radiation. This radiation is a consequence of the collisions and coalescence of multiple bubbles during the transition. We employ high-resolution lattice simulations to numerically evolve a system of bubbles using only scalar fields, track the anisotropic stress during the process and evolve the metric perturbations associated with gravitational radiation. Although the radiation produced during the bubble collisions has previously been estimated, we find that the coalescence phase enhances this radiation even in the absence of a coupled fluid or turbulence. We comment on how these simulations scale and propose that the same enhancement should be found at the Electroweak scale; this modification should make direct detection of a first-order electroweak phasetransition easier.

Various types ordering processes in systems with large fluctuation are overviewed. Generally, the so-called order-disorder phasetransition takes place in competition between the interaction causing the system be ordered and the entropy causing a random disturbance. Nature of the phasetransition strongly depends on the type of fluctuation which is determined by the structure of the order parameter of the system. As to the critical property of phasetransitions, the concept "universality of the critical phenomena" is well established. However, we still find variety of features of ordering processes. In this article, we study effects of various mechanisms which bring large fluctuation in the system, e.g., continuous symmetry of the spin in low dimensions, contradictions among interactions (frustration), randomness of the lattice, quantum fluctuations, and a long range interaction in off-lattice systems. PMID:20689226

We have created a MATLAB based graphical user interface (GUI) that simulates the single spin flip Metropolis Monte Carlo algorithm. The GUI has the capability to study temperature and external magnetic field dependence of magnetization, susceptibility, and equilibration behavior of the nearest-neighbor square lattice Ising model. Since the Ising model is a canonical system to study phasetransition, the GUI can be used both for teaching and research purposes. The presence of a Monte Carlo code in a GUI format allows easy visualization of the simulation in real time and provides an attractive way to teach the concept of thermal phasetransition and critical phenomena. We will also discuss the GUI implementation to study phasetransition in a classical spin ice model on the pyrochlore lattice.

The dynamics of track development due to the passage of relativistic heavy ions through solids is a long-standing issue relevant to nuclear materials, age dating of minerals, space exploration, and nanoscale fabrication of novel devices. We have integrated experimental and simulation approaches to investigate nanoscale phasetransitions under the extreme conditions created within single tracks of relativistic ions in Gd{sub 2}O{sub 3}(TiO{sub 2}){sub x} and Gd{sub 2}Zr{sub 2–x} Ti{sub x} O{sub 7}. Track size and internal structure depend on energy density deposition, irradiation temperature, and material composition. Based on the inelastic thermal spike model, molecular dynamics simulations follow the time evolution of individual tracks and reveal the phasetransition pathways to the concentric track structures observed experimentally. Individual ion tracks have nanoscale core-shell structures that provide a unique record of the phasetransition pathways under extreme conditions.

In this paper, we propose a new possible connection between dark matter relic density and baryon asymmetry of the universe. The portal between standard model sector and dark matter not only controls the relic density and detections of dark matter, but also allows the dark matter to trigger the first order electroweak phasetransition. We discuss systematically possible scalar dark matter candidates, starting from a real singlet to arbitrary high representations. We show that the simplest realization is provided by a doublet, and that strong first-order electroweak phasetransition implies a lower bound on the dark matter direct detection rate. The mass of dark matter lies between 45 and 80 GeV, allowing for an appreciable invisible decay width of the Standard Model Higgs boson, which is constrained to be lighter than 130 GeV for the sake of the strong phasetransition.

Cristobalite is a common mineral in volcanic ash produced from dome-forming eruptions. Assessment of the respiratory hazard posed by volcanic ash requires understanding the nature of the cristobalite it contains. Volcanic cristobalite contains coupled substitutions of Al3+ and Na+ for Si4+; similar co-substitutions in synthetic cristobalite are known to modify the crystal structure, affecting the stability of the α and β forms and the observed transition between them. Here, for the first time, the dynamics and energy changes associated with the α–β phasetransition in volcanic cristobalite are investigated using X-ray powder diffraction with simultaneous in situ heating and differential scanning calorimetry. At ambient temperature, volcanic cristobalite exists in the α form and has a larger cell volume than synthetic α-cristobalite; as a result, its diffraction pattern sits between ICDD α- and β-cristobalite library patterns, which could cause ambiguity in phase identification. On heating from ambient temperature, volcanic cristobalite exhibits a lower degree of thermal expansion than synthetic cristobalite, and it also has a lower α–β transition temperature (∼473 K) compared with synthetic cristobalite (upwards of 543 K); these observations are discussed in relation to the presence of Al3+ and Na+ defects. The transition shows a stable and reproducible hysteresis loop with α and β phases coexisting through the transition, suggesting that discrete crystals in the sample have different transition temperatures. PMID:25242910

We find numerical and empirical evidence for dynamical, structural and topological phasetransitions on the (German) Frankfurt Stock Exchange (FSE) in the temporal vicinity of the worldwide financial crash. Using the Minimal Spanning Tree (MST) technique, a particularly useful canonical tool of the graph theory, two transitions of the topology of a complex network representing the FSE were found. The first transition is from a hierarchical scale-free MST representing the stock market before the recent worldwide financial crash, to a superstar-like MST decorated by a scale-free hierarchy of trees representing the market’s state for the period containing the crash. Subsequently, a transition is observed from this transient, (meta)stable state of the crash to a hierarchical scale-free MST decorated by several star-like trees after the worldwide financial crash. The phasetransitions observed are analogous to the ones we obtained earlier for the Warsaw Stock Exchange and more pronounced than those found by Onnela-Chakraborti-Kaski-Kertész for the S&P 500 index in the vicinity of Black Monday (October 19, 1987) and also in the vicinity of January 1, 1998. Our results provide an empirical foundation for the future theory of dynamical, structural and topological phasetransitions on financial markets.

Cristobalite is a common mineral in volcanic ash produced from dome-forming eruptions. Assessment of the respiratory hazard posed by volcanic ash requires understanding the nature of the cristobalite it contains. Volcanic cristobalite contains coupled substitutions of Al(3+) and Na(+) for Si(4+); similar co-substitutions in synthetic cristobalite are known to modify the crystal structure, affecting the stability of the α and β forms and the observed transition between them. Here, for the first time, the dynamics and energy changes associated with the α-β phasetransition in volcanic cristobalite are investigated using X-ray powder diffraction with simultaneous in situ heating and differential scanning calorimetry. At ambient temperature, volcanic cristobalite exists in the α form and has a larger cell volume than synthetic α-cristobalite; as a result, its diffraction pattern sits between ICDD α- and β-cristobalite library patterns, which could cause ambiguity in phase identification. On heating from ambient temperature, volcanic cristobalite exhibits a lower degree of thermal expansion than synthetic cristobalite, and it also has a lower α-β transition temperature (∼473 K) compared with synthetic cristobalite (upwards of 543 K); these observations are discussed in relation to the presence of Al(3+) and Na(+) defects. The transition shows a stable and reproducible hysteresis loop with α and β phases coexisting through the transition, suggesting that discrete crystals in the sample have different transition temperatures. PMID:25242910

Studies of the phasetransitions in an active substance contained in a solid dosage form are very complicated but essential, especially if an active substance is classified as a BCS Class IV drug. The purpose of this work was the development of sensitive methods for the detection of the phasetransitions in the aripiprazole tablets containing initially its form III. Aripiprazole exhibits polymorphism and pseudopolymorphism. Powder diffraction, Raman spectroscopy and differential scanning calorimetry methods were developed for the detection of the polymorphic transition between forms III and I as well as the phasetransition of form III into aripiprazole monohydrate in tablets. The study involved the initial 10 mg and 30 mg tablets, as well as those stored in Al/Al blisters, a triplex blister pack and HDPE bottles (with and without desiccant) under accelerated and long term conditions. The polymorphic transition was not observed in the initial and stored tablets but it was visible on the DSC curve of the Abilify(®) 10 mg reference tablets. The formation of the monohydrate was observed in the diffractograms and Raman spectra in the tablets stored under accelerated conditions. The monohydrate phase was not detected in the tablets stored in the Al/Al blisters under long term conditions. The results showed that the Al/Al blisters can be recommended as the packaging of the aripiprazole tablets containing form III. PMID:26397209

After presenting the current view of the processes taking place during the cosmological transition from 'quark soup' to normal hadron matter, attention is given to what happens to cosmological nucleosynthesis in the presence of small-scale baryon inhomogeneities. The QCD phasetransition is among the plausible sources of this inhomogeneity. It is concluded that the formation of primordial 'quark nuggets' and other cold exotica requires very low entropy regions at the outset, and that even the more modest nonlinearities perturbing nucleosynthesis probably require some ingredient in addition to a quiescent, mildly supercooled transition.

We show that a simple model of an evolving sexual population, which dates back to some of the earliest work in theoretical population genetics, exhibits an unexpected and previously unobserved phasetransition between ordered and disordered states. This behavior is not present in populations evolving asexually without recombination and is thus important in any comparison of sexual and asexual populations. In order to calculate the details of the phasetransition, we use techniques from statistical physics. We introduce the correlation of the population as the order parameter of the system and use maximum entropy inference to find the state of the population at any time.

We study charged black holes in D dimensional AdS space, in the presence of four derivative Weyl correction. We obtain the black hole solution perturbatively up to first as well as second order in the Weyl coupling, and show that first law of black hole thermodynamics is satisfied in all dimensions. We study its thermodynamic phasetransition and then calculate the quasinormal frequencies of the massless scalar field perturbation. We find that, here too, the quasinormal frequencies capture the essence of black hole phasetransition. Few subtleties near the second order critical point are discussed.

V{sub 2}O{sub 3} nanocrystals can be synthesized through hydrothermal reduction in VO(OH){sub 2} using hydrazine as a reducing agent. Addition of different ligands to the reaction produces nanoparticles, nanorods, and nanoplatelets of different sizes. Small nanoparticles synthesized in this manner show suppression of the magnetic phasetransition to lower temperatures. Using muon spin relaxation spectroscopy and synchrotron x-ray diffraction, we have determined that the volume fraction of the high-temperature phase, characterized by a rhombohedral structure and paramagnetism, gradually declines with decreasing temperature, in contrast to the sharp transition observed in bulk V{sub 2}O{sub 3}.

V{sub 2}O{sub 3} nanocrystals can be synthesized through hydrothermal reduction in VO(OH){sub 2} using hydrazine as a reducing agent. Addition of different ligands to the reaction produces nanoparticles, nanorods, and nanoplatelets of different sizes. Small nanoparticles synthesized in this manner show suppression of the magnetic phasetransition to lower temperatures. Using muon spin relaxation spectroscopy and synchrotron x-ray diffraction, we have determined that the volume fraction of the high-temperature phase, characterized by a rhombohedral structure and paramagnetism, gradually declines with decreasing temperature, in contrast to the sharp transition observed in bulk V{sub 2}O{sub 3}.

Assuming the dipole model for a membrane, approximate calculations are made which employ a dipole-dipole interaction energy. The calculations are based upon the assumption of cooperative coupling of membrane polar molecules and make use of the Bragg-Williams approximation. A theoretical estimate is made of the critical temperature at which phase changes might occur in certain biological membranes. Proposals are presented which explain how the dipole transition might relate to the sometimes observed thermal phasetransitions in biological membranes. PMID:5134212

The critical point of a topological phasetransition is described by a conformal field theory. Finite-size corrections give rise to a scaling function away from criticality for both energy and entanglement entropy of the system. While in the past the scaling function for the usual von Neumann entropy was found to be equal for the trivial and the topological side of the transition, we find that the scaling functions for energy and Renyi entropy with α > 1 are different for the two sides. This provides an easy tool to distinguish between the trivial and topological phases near criticality.

We propose a simple approach to realize a topological phasetransition using a spatial periodic potential. As an example, we examine the electronic structures of HgTe/CdTe quantum wells, and demonstrate that their band structures can be effectively manipulated by the periodic potential. At a critical potential, we find that a conventional band insulator undergoes a topological phasetransition into a quantum spin Hall system, which is characterized by an abrupt change of the spin Chern number and emerging edge states. Our proposal provides an interesting way to dynamically turn on or off topologically protected edge states for application in switching devices.

We introduce a coherence susceptibility method, based on the fact that it signals quantum fluctuations, for identifying quantum phasetransitions, which are induced by quantum fluctuations. This method requires no prior knowledge of order parameter, and there is no need for careful considerations concerning the choice of a bipartition of the system. It can identify different types of quantum phasetransition points exactly. At finite temperatures, where quantum criticality is influenced by thermal fluctuations, our method can pinpoint the temperature frame of quantum criticality, which perfectly coincides with recent experiments.

I consider quantum field theories that admit charged nontopological solitons of the Q-ball type, and use the fact that in a first-order cosmological phasetransition, below the critical temperature, there is a value of the soliton charge above which the soliton becomes unstable and expands, converting space to the true vacuum, much like a critical bubble in the case of ordinary tunneling. Using a simple model for the production rate of Q-balls through charge accretion during a random walk out of equilibrium, I calculate the probability for the formation of critical charge solitons and estimate the amount of supercooling needed for the phasetransition to be completed.

The phasetransition for turbulent diffusion, reported by Avellaneda and Majda [Avellaneda, M. & Majda, A. J. (1994) Philos. Trans. R. Soc. London A 346, 205-233, and several earlier papers], is traced to a modeling assumption in which the energy spectrum of the turbulent fluid is singularly dependent on the viscosity in the inertial range. Phenomenological models of turbulence and intermittency, by contrast, require that the energy spectrum be independent of the viscosity in the inertial range. When the energy spectrum is assumed to be consistent with the phenomenological models, there is no phasetransition for turbulent diffusion. Images Fig. 2 PMID:11607590

The structural and elastic properties of Americium Telluride (AmTe) have been investigated by using a modified inter-ionic potential theory (MIPT). This theory is capable of explaining first order phasetransition with a crystallographic change NaCl to CsCl structure for this compound. The values of optimized lattice constant, phasetransition pressure, zero pressure bulk modulus and second order elastic constants (C11, C44) agree well with their corresponding experimental data. Debye temperature (θD) is also calculated for this compound for the first time.

It is entirely plausible that during the primordial quark- hadron phasetransition in the universe, microseconds after the Big Bang, supercooling takes place, accompanied by miniinflation. With µ/T ∼ 1 (µ is chemical potential), leading to a first order phasetransition from quarks to hadrons; there will be relics in the form of quark nuggets, and, that they consist of Strange Quark Matter. The possibility that these SQM nuggets may well be the candidates of cold dark matter is critically examined. A cursory comparison with the neutron star is presented at the end.

A first-order cosmological phasetransition that proceeds through the nucleation and collision of true-vacuum bubbles is a potent source of gravitational radiation. Possibilities for such include first-order inflation, grand-unified-theory-symmetry breaking, and electroweak-symmetry breaking. We have calculated gravity-wave production from the collision of two scalar-field vacuum bubbles, and, using an approximation based upon these results, from the collision of 20 to 30 vacuum bubbles. We present estimates of the relic background of gravitational waves produced by a first-order phasetransition.

A healthy human heart rate displays complex fluctuations which share characteristics of physical systems in a critical state. We demonstrate that the human heart rate in healthy individuals undergoes a dramatic breakdown of criticality characteristics, reminiscent of continuous second order phasetransitions. By studying the germane determinants, we show that the hallmark of criticality—highly correlated fluctuations—is observed only during usual daily activity, and a breakdown of these characteristics occurs in prolonged, strenuous exercise and sleep. This finding is the first reported discovery of the dynamical phasetransition phenomenon in a biological control system and will be a key to understanding the heart rate control system in health and disease.

Using classical molecular dynamics with a more reliable reactive LCBOPII potential, we have performed a detailed study on the direct graphite-to-diamond phasetransition. Our results reveal a new so-called “wave-like buckling and slipping” mechanism, which controls the transformation from hexagonal graphite to cubic diamond. Based on this mechanism, we have explained how polycrystalline cubic diamond is converted from hexagonal graphite, and demonstrated that the initial interlayer distance of compressed hexagonal graphite play a key role to determine the grain size of cubic diamond. These results can broaden our understanding of the high pressure graphite-to-diamond phasetransition. PMID:25088720

For many years it has been speculated that excited nuclei would undergo a liquid to vapor phasetransition. For even longer, it has been known that clusterization in a vapor carries direct information on the liquid-vapor equilibrium according to Fisher's droplet model. Now the thermal component of the 8 GeV/c pion + 197 Au multifragmentation data of the ISiS Collaboration is shown to follow the scaling predicted by Fisher's model, thus providing the strongest evidence yet of the liquid to vapor phasetransition.

The work compiles a correlated study of a gravitational quasi equilibrium thermodynamic approach for establishing and signifying a unique behavior of the cosmological entropy and phasetransitions in an expanding Universe. On the basis of prescribed boundary conditions for the cluster temperature a relation for the intra-cluster medium (ICM) of galaxy clusters has been derived. A more productive and signifying approach of the correlation functions used for galaxy clustering phenomena shows a unique behavior of the entropy change where a phenomenon known as the gravitational phasetransition occurs. This unique behavior occurs with a symmetry breaking from mild clustering to low clustering and from mild clustering to high clustering which differs from a normal symmetry breaking in material sciences. We also derive results for the specific latent heat associated with the phasetransitions of 3.20 T_c and 0.55 T_c for the mildly clustered phase to the low clustered phase and from the mildly clustered phase to the highly clustered phase, respectively.

I begin with a proposed global phase diagram of the cuprate superconductors as a function of carrier concentration, magnetic field, and temperature, and highlight its connection to numerous recent experiments. The phase diagram is then used as a point of departure for a pedagogical review of various quantum phases and phasetransitions of insulators, superconductors, and metals. The bond operator method is used to describe the transition of dimerized antiferromagnetic insulators between magnetically ordered states and spin-gap states. The Schwinger boson method is applied to frustrated square lattice antiferromagnets: phase diagrams containing collinear and spirally ordered magnetic states, Z_2 spin liquids, and valence bond solids are presented, and described by an effective gauge theory of spinons. Insights from these theories of insulators are then applied to a variety of symmetry breaking transitions in d-wave superconductors. The latter systems also contain fermionic quasiparticles with a massless Dirac spectrum, and their influence on the order parameter fluctuations and quantum criticality is carefully discussed. I conclude with an introduction to strong coupling problems associated with symmetry breaking transitions in two-dimensional metals, where the order parameter fluctuations couple to a gapless line of fermionic excitations along the Fermi surface.

Based on empirical and numerical analyses of vehicular traffic, the physics of spatiotemporal phasetransitions in traffic flow on multilane roads is revealed. The complex dynamics of moving jams observed in single vehicle data measured by video cameras on American highways is explained by the nucleation-interruption effect in synchronized flow, i.e., the spontaneous nucleation of a narrow moving jam with the subsequent jam dissolution. We find that (i) lane changing, vehicle merging from on-ramps, and vehicle leaving to off-ramps result in different traffic phases—free flow, synchronized flow, and wide moving jams—occurring and coexisting in different road lanes as well as in diverse phasetransitions between the traffic phases; (ii) in synchronized flow, the phasetransitions are responsible for a non-regular moving jam dynamics that explains measured single vehicle data: moving jams emerge and dissolve randomly at various road locations in different lanes; (iii) the phasetransitions result also in diverse expanded general congested patterns occurring at closely located bottlenecks.

In this paper, recent microgravity two-phase flow data for air-water, air-water-glycerin, and air- water-Zonyl FSP mixtures are analyzed for transition from bubbly to slug and from slug to annular flow. It is found that Weber number-based maps are inadequate to predict flow-pattern transition, especially over a wide range of liquid flow rates. It is further shown that slug to annular flow transition is dependent on liquid phase Reynolds number at high liquid flow rate. This effect may be attributed to growing importance of liquid phase inertia in the dynamics of the phase flow and distribution. As a result a new form of scaling is introduced to present data using liquid Weber number based on vapor and liquid superficial velocities and Reynolds number based on liquid superficial velocity. This new combination of the dimensionless parameters seem to be more appropriate for the presentation of the microgravity data and provides a better flow pattern prediction and should be considered for evaluation with data obtained in the future. Similarly, the analysis of bubble to slug flow transition indicates a strong dependence on both liquid inertia and turbulence fluctuations which seem to play a significant role on this transition at high values of liquid velocity. A revised mapping of data using a new group of dimensionless parameters show a better and more consistent description of flow transition over a wide range of liquid flow rates. Further evaluation of the proposed flow transition mapping will have to be made after a wider range of microgravity data become available.

We investigate layered neural networks with differentiable activation function and student vectors without normalization constraint by means of equilibrium statistical physics. We consider the learning of perfectly realizable rules and find that the length of student vectors becomes infinite, unless a proper weight decay term is added to the energy. Then, the system undergoes a first-order phasetransition between states with very long student vectors and states where the lengths are comparable to those of the teacher vectors. Additionally, in both configurations there is a phasetransition between a specialized and an unspecialized phase. An anti-specialized phase with long student vectors exists in networks with a small number of hidden units.

We study the stability of three-dimensional incompressible Weyl semimetals in the presence of random quenched charge impurities. Combining numerical analysis and scaling theory, we show that, in the presence of sufficiently weak randomness, (i) the Weyl semimetal remains stable, while (ii) the double-Weyl semimetal gives rise to compressible diffusive metal where the mean density of states at zero energy is finite. At stronger disorder, the Weyl semimetal undergoes a quantum phasetransition and enter into a metallic phase. The mean density of states at zero energy serves as the order parameter and displays single-parameter scaling across such a disorder driven quantum phasetransition. We numerically determine various exponents at the critical point, which appear to be insensitive to the number of Weyl pairs. We also extract the extent of the quantum critical regime in disordered Weyl semimetals and the phase diagram of dirty double-Weyl semimetals at finite energies.

Solid bromine has been studied by x-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments up to a maximum pressure of 75 GPa. The data analysis of the extended fine structure reveals that the intramolecular distance first increases, reaching its maximum value at 25{+-}5 GPa. From this value the intramolecular distance abruptly begins to decrease evidencing a nonpreviously observed phase transformation taking place at 25{+-}5 GPa. A maximum variation of 0.08 A ring is observed at 65{+-}5 GPa where again a phasetransition occurs. This last transformation could correspond with the recently observed change to an incommensurate modulated phase. We discuss the possible generalization of the observed new phasetransition at 25{+-}5 GPa to the case of the other halogens.

The Dicke model with a weak dissipation channel is realized by coupling a Bose–Einstein condensate to an optical cavity with ultranarrow bandwidth. We explore the dynamical critical properties of the Hepp–Lieb–Dicke phasetransition by performing quenches across the phase boundary. We observe hysteresis in the transition between a homogeneous phase and a self-organized collective phase with an enclosed loop area showing power-law scaling with respect to the quench time, which suggests an interpretation within a general framework introduced by Kibble and Zurek. The observed hysteretic dynamics is well reproduced by numerically solving the mean-field equation derived from a generalized Dicke Hamiltonian. Our work promotes the understanding of nonequilibrium physics in open many-body systems with infinite range interactions. PMID:25733892

The Dicke model with a weak dissipation channel is realized by coupling a Bose-Einstein condensate to an optical cavity with ultranarrow bandwidth. We explore the dynamical critical properties of the Hepp-Lieb-Dicke phasetransition by performing quenches across the phase boundary. We observe hysteresis in the transition between a homogeneous phase and a self-organized collective phase with an enclosed loop area showing power-law scaling with respect to the quench time, which suggests an interpretation within a general framework introduced by Kibble and Zurek. The observed hysteretic dynamics is well reproduced by numerically solving the mean-field equation derived from a generalized Dicke Hamiltonian. Our work promotes the understanding of nonequilibrium physics in open many-body systems with infinite range interactions. PMID:25733892

We recently reported that single duplex DNA, with the size above the order of several tens kilobase pairs, undergoes a large discrete transition from an elongated coil into a collapsed globule with the addition of a cationic surfactant. In the present article, we describe the manner of the unfolding transition of compact long DNA, or globule DNA, complexed with cationic surfactants, cetyltrimethylammonium bromide (CTAB) and distearyldimethylammonium bromide (D18DAB), as is induced by the addition of sodium bromide. The conformational dynamics of individual single duplex T4DNA molecules was directly observed with the use of fluorescence microscopy. We found that on the level of individual DNAs, the salt-induced unfolding transition of the globules is largely discrete, or first-order phasetransition for the both complexes with CTAB and D18DAB. On the other hand, for the ensemble average of the DNAs, the transition is discrete with CTAB but is continuous (sigmoidal) with D18DAB. The discreteness for the coil-globule transition in the ensemble of DNAs complexed with CTAB is attributed to the existence of the phasetransition in whole over the bulk solution: the sphere-rod transition in surfactant micelles. On the other hand, for D18DAB such phasetransition on the micelle structure in the bulk solution seems to be absent. In correspondence to such a large difference on the manner of the transition, x-ray diffraction analysis indicates marked difference on the structure of DNA complexes with CTAB and with D18DAB.

The overall change of density for dipalmitoyl lecithin bilayers agrees with a general order-disorder theory and yields about seven gauche rotations per molecule for the biologically relevant high-temperature phase. The shape of the curve of density against temperature is similar to the result of an exact calculation on a specific model, which gives a 3/2-order phasetransition. PMID:4519637

In this work, a compressible multiphase one-fluid Euler solver has been developed to study one-dimensional expansion problems with cavitation process. A new model for the mass transfer between phases is proposed, and its efficiency in predicting phasetransition is evaluated. Numerical simulations are compared with reference solutions computed with the two-fluid models type. The results suggest that the present model exhibits good robustness and accuracy.

We study information geometry of the Dicke model, in the thermodynamic limit. The scalar curvature R of the Riemannian metric tensor induced on the parameter space of the model is calculated. We analyze this both with and without the rotating wave approximation, and show that the parameter manifold is smooth even at the phasetransition, and that the scalar curvature is continuous across the phase boundary. PMID:23030896

Since it was developed in the late 1990s, 1,1-diamino-2,2-dinitroethene (FOX-7), with lower sensitivity and comparable performance to RDX, has received increasing interest. This paper will present our results for the phase changes of FOX-7 using DSC and HFC (Heat Flow Calorimetry). DSC thermal curves recorded at linear heating rates of 0.10, 0.35 and 1.0 C min{sup -1} show two endothermic peaks and two exothermic peaks. The two endothermic peaks represent solid-solid phasetransitions, which have been observed in the literature at 114 C ({beta}-{gamma}) and 159 C ({gamma}-{delta}) by both DSC and XPD (X-ray powder diffraction) measurements. The first transition shifts from 114.5 to 115.8 C as the heating rate increases from 0.10 to 1.0 C min{sup -1}, while the second transition shifts from 158.5 to 160.4 C. Cyclical heating experiments show the endotherms and exotherms for a first heating through the {gamma} phase to the {delta} phase, a cooling and reversion to the {alpha} or {beta} phase, and a second heating to the {gamma} and {delta} phases. The data are interpreted using kinetic models with thermodynamic constraints.

In this study, we examine effective field theories of superconducting phases with topological order, making a connection to proposed realizations of exotic topological phases (including those hosting Ising and Fibonacci anyons) in superconductor-quantum Hall heterostructures. Our effective field theories for the non-Abelian superconducting states are non-Abelian Chern-Simons theories in which the condensation of vortices carrying non-Abelian gauge flux leads to the associated Abelian quantum Hall states. This Chern-Simons-Higgs condensation process is dual to the emergence of superconducting non-Abelian topological phases in coupled chain constructions. In such transitions, the chiral central charge of the system generally changes, so they fall outside the description of bosonic condensation transitions put forth by Bais and Slingerland [F. A. Bais and J. K. Slingerland, Phys. Rev. B 79, 045316 (2009), 10.1103/PhysRevB.79.045316] (though the two approaches agree when the described transitions coincide). Our condensation process may be generalized to Chern-Simons theories based on arbitrary Lie groups, always describing a transition from a Lie algebra to its Cartan subalgebra. We include several instructive examples of such transitions.

Many body localization allows quantum systems to evade thermalization owing to the emergence of extensive number of local conserved quantities. Many-body localized (MBL) systems exhibit universal dynamics, qualitatively distinct from dynamics in ergodic systems. In this talk I will survey recent progress in understanding the properties of the MBL phase, which follow from the picture of local conserved quantities. In particular, I will discuss the power-law relaxation of local observables, which gives an experimentally observable signatures of the MBL phase. In the second part of my talk, I will demonstrate how the delocalization transition can be probed by characterizing the breakdown of local conservation laws. Using statistics of matrix elements of local operators, I will introduce an analogue of many-body Thouless conductance which probes the response of the system to local perturbations. Its scaling allows one to locate the MBL transition, and predicts the onset of logarithmically slow transport at the MBL transition, consistent with results from the renormalization group. In addition, I will demonstrate how the properties of matrix elements govern the crossover of the level statistics across the MBL transition, and relate to the dynamics in the ergodic phase. I will conclude by discussing experimental implications and open challenges in understanding the MBL transition.

Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) is a semi-crystalline polymer exhibiting complicated pressure and temperature dependent phases. High strain rate applications in aerospace, defense, and automotive industries have lead to interest in the shock response of PTFE and resulting changes in the polymer structure. Experimental studies on pressure-induced phasetransitions using shock-loading techniques and the resulting changes in crystalline structure are presented. Gas launcher experiments were performed on pedigreed PTFE 7C momentum trapped assemblies with impact pressures from 0.4 to 0.85 GPa to investigate the material response above and below the phase II to phase III crystalline transition. [LAUR-05-5945

Momentum-conserving lattice gases are simple, discrete, microscopic models of fluids. This review describes their hydrodynamics, with particular attention given to the derivation of macroscopic constitutive equations from microscopic dynamics. Lattice-gas models of phase separation receive special emphasis. The current understanding of phasetransitions in these momentum-conserving models is reviewed; included in this discussion is a summary of the dynamical properties of interfaces. Because the phase-separation models are microscopically time irreversible, interesting questions are raised about their relationship to real fluid mixtures. Simulation of certain complex-fluid problems, such as multiphase flow through porous media and the interaction of phasetransitions with hydrodynamics, is illustrated.

Previous work has suggested that there is a kind of phasetransition between deterministic automata exhibiting periodic behavior and those exhibiting chaotic behavior. However, unlike the usual phasetransitions of physics, this transition takes place over a range of values of the parameter rather than at a specific value. The present paper asks whether the transition can be made sharp, either by taking the limit of an infinitely large rule table, or by changing the parameter in terms of which the space of automata is explored. We find strong evidence that, for the class of automata we consider, the transition does become sharp in the limit of an infinite number of symbols, the size of the neighborhood being held fixed. Our work also suggests an alternative parameter in terms of which it is likely that the transition will become fairly sharp even if one does not increase the number of symbols. In the course of our analysis, we find that mean field theory, which is our main tool, gives surprisingly good predictions of the statistical properties of the class of automata we consider. 18 refs., 6 figs.

Predicting labels of nodes in a network, such as community memberships or demographic variables, is an important problem with applications in social and biological networks. A recently discovered phasetransition puts fundamental limits on the accuracy of these predictions if we have access only to the network topology. However, if we know the correct labels of some fraction α of the nodes, we can do better. We study the phase diagram of this semisupervised learning problem for networks generated by the stochastic block model. We use the cavity method and the associated belief propagation algorithm to study what accuracy can be achieved as a function of α. For k=2 groups, we find that the detectability transition disappears for any α>0, in agreement with previous work. For larger k where a hard but detectable regime exists, we find that the easy/hard transition (the point at which efficient algorithms can do better than chance) becomes a line of transitions where the accuracy jumps discontinuously at a critical value of α. This line ends in a critical point with a second-order transition, beyond which the accuracy is a continuous function of α. We demonstrate qualitatively similar transitions in two real-world networks. PMID:25493829

The ground-state phase diagram and quantum phasetransitions (QPTs) in a spin-1 compass chain are investigated by the infinite time-evolving block decimation (iTEBD) method. Various phases are discerned by energy densities, spin correlations and entanglement entropy. A generalized string correlator is found to be capable of describing the nonlocal string order in the disordered phase. Furthermore, in the noncritical disordered phase, the spin-spin correlations are found to decay exponentially. Except for a multicritical point ( J 1 = 0, J 2 = 0), the QPTs are determined to have second-order characters. In addition, the central charges on these critical phase boundaries are determined to be c = 1 / 2, therefore these QPTs belong to the Ising universality class.

A linearized version of the Hartree-Fock method is used as a probe to investigate phasetransitions in fermionic systems with many-body interactions. An application to a new exactly solvable model which includes two- and three-body forces is shown.

We report new simulations of cooling of compact stars containing quark cores and updated fits to the Cas A fast cooling data. Our model is built on the assumption that the transient behaviour of the star in Cas A is due to a phasetransition within the dense QCD matter in the core of the star. Specifically, the fast cooling is attributed to an enhancement in the neutrino emission triggered by a transition from a fully gapped, two-flavor, red-green color-superconducting quark condensate to a superconducting crystalline or an alternative gapless, color-superconducting phase. The blue-colored condensate is modeled as a Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS)-type color superconductor with spin-one pairing order parameter. We study the sensitivity of the fits to the phasetransition temperature, the pairing gap of blue quarks and the timescale characterizing the phasetransition (the latter modelled in terms of a width parameter). Relative variations in these parameter around their best-fit values larger than 10-3 spoil the fit to the data. We confirm the previous finding that the cooling curves show significant variations as a function of compact star mass, which allows one to account for dispersion in the data on the surface temperatures of thermally emitting neutron stars.

Extremal dynamics represents a path to self-organized criticality in which the order parameter is tuned to a value of zero. The order parameter is associated with a phasetransition to an absorbing state. Given a process that exhibits a phasetransition to an absorbing state, we define an “extremal absorbing” process, providing the link to the associated extremal (nonabsorbing) process. Stationary properties of the latter correspond to those at the absorbing-state phasetransition in the former. Studying the absorbing version of an extremal dynamics model allows to determine certain critical exponents that are not otherwise accessible. In the case of the Bak-Sneppen (BS) model, the absorbing version is closely related to the “ f -avalanche” introduced by Paczuski, Maslov, and Bak [Phys. Rev. E 53, 414 (1996)], or, in spreading simulations to the “BS branching process” also studied by these authors. The corresponding nonextremal process belongs to the directed percolation universality class. We revisit the absorbing BS model, obtaining refined estimates for the threshold and critical exponents in one dimension. We also study an extremal version of the usual contact process, using mean-field theory and simulation. The extremal condition slows the spread of activity and modifies the critical behavior radically, defining an “extremal directed percolation” universality class of absorbing-state phasetransitions. Asymmetric updating is a relevant perturbation for this class, even though it is irrelevant for the corresponding nonextremal class.

The results of study the phenomenon, discovered by author (1971), of the phasetransition of grain boundary by the formation of two-dimensional liquid or quasi-liquid films have been done. The described phenomena of the first order phasetransition (two-dimensional melting) at temperatures 0.6 - 0.9 TS0 (of the solid state melting point) is a fundamental property of solid crystalline materials, which has allowed to revise radically scientific representations about a solid state of substance. Using the mathematical tools of the film thermodynamics it has been obtained the generalized equation of Clausius - Clapeyron type for two-dimensional phasetransition. The generalized equation has been used for calculating grain boundary phasetransition temperature TSf of any metal, which value lies in the range of (0.55…0.86) TS0. Based on these works conclusions the develop strategies for effective forming of coatings (by thermo-chemical processing) on surface layers of functional alloys and hard metals have been made. The short overview of the results of some graded alloys characterization has been done.

On page 478, N. Bassiri-Gharb and co-workers demonstrate acoustic detection in nanoscale volumes by use of an atomic force microscope tip technique. Elastic changes in volume are measured by detecting changes in resonance of the cantilever. Also, the electric field in this case causes a phasetransition, which is modeled by Landau theory.

A mathematical model of fibrin polymerization is described. The problem of the propagation of phasetransition wave is reduced to a nonlinear Stefan problem. A one-dimensional discontinuity fitting difference scheme is described, and the results of one-dimensional computations are presented.

The results of study the phenomenon, discovered by author (1971), of the phasetransition of grain boundary by the formation of two-dimensional liquid or quasi-liquid films have been done. The described phenomena of the first order phasetransition (two-dimensional melting) at temperatures 0.6 – 0.9 T{sub S0} (of the solid state melting point) is a fundamental property of solid crystalline materials, which has allowed to revise radically scientific representations about a solid state of substance. Using the mathematical tools of the film thermodynamics it has been obtained the generalized equation of Clausius - Clapeyron type for two-dimensional phasetransition. The generalized equation has been used for calculating grain boundary phasetransition temperature T{sub Sf} of any metal, which value lies in the range of (0.55…0.86) T{sub S0}. Based on these works conclusions the develop strategies for effective forming of coatings (by thermo-chemical processing) on surface layers of functional alloys and hard metals have been made. The short overview of the results of some graded alloys characterization has been done.

The influence of monoperiodic and biperiodic bias fields on the nucleation of domain structures in quasi-uniaxial magnetic films near the Curie point has been studied experimentally. The main types of observed nonuniform magnetic moment distributions have been established and chains of a devil's staircase phasetransitions are shown to be realized when the films are slowly cooled.

The complexity of interactions among individuals and between individuals and the environment make agent based modeling ideal for studying emergent speciation. This is a dynamically complex problem that can be characterized via the critical behavior of a continuous phasetransition. Concomitant with the main tenets of natural selection, we allow organisms to reproduce, mutate, and die within a neutral phenotype space. Previous work has shown phasetransition behavior in an assortative mating model with variable fitness landscapes as the maximum mutation size (μ) was varied (Dees and Bahar, 2010). Similarly, this behavior was recently presented in the work of Scott et al. (2013), even on a completely neutral landscape, for bacterial-like fission as well as for assortative mating. Here we present another neutral model to investigate the `critical' phasetransition behavior of three mating types - assortative, bacterial, and random - in a phenotype space as a function of the percentage of random death. Results show two types of phasetransitions occurring for the parameters of the population size and the number of clusters (an analogue of species), indicating different evolutionary dynamics for system survival and clustering. This research was supported by funding from: University of Missouri Research Board and James S. McDonnell Foundation.

We analyze the thermodynamics of the Overhauser model and demonstrate rigorously the existence of a phasetransition. This is achieved by extending techniques previously developed to treat the BCS model in the quasi-spin formulation. Additionally, we compare the thermodynamics of the quasi-spin and full-trace BCS models. The results are identical up to a temperature rescaling.

The microscopic pathway along which ions or molecules in a crystal move during structural phasetransition can often be described in terms of a collective vibrational mode of the lattice. In many cases, this mode, called a 'soft' phonon mode because of its characteristically low frequency near the phasetransition temperature, is difficult to characterize through conventional frequency-domain spectroscopies such as light or neutron scattering. A femtosecond time-domain analog of light-scattering spectroscopy called impulsive stimulated Raman scattering (ISRS) has been used to examine the soft modes of two perovskite ferroelectric crystals. The low-frequency lattice dynamics of KNbO3 and BaTiO3 are clarified in a manner that permits critical evaluation of microscopic models for their ferroelectric transitions. The results illustrate the advantages of ISRS over conventional Raman spectroscopy of low-frequency, heavily damped soft modes.

We report theoretical evidence of a liquid-liquid phasetransition (LLPT) in liquid silicon carbide under nanoslit confinement. The LLPT is characterized by layering transitions induced by confinement and pressure, accompanying the rapid change in density. During the layering transition, the proportional distribution of tetracoordinated and pentacoordinated structures exhibits remarkable change. The tricoordinated structures lead to the microphase separation between silicon (with the dominant tricoordinated, tetracoordinated, and pentacoordinated structures) and carbon (with the dominant tricoordinated structures) in the layer close to the walls. A strong layer separation between silicon atoms and carbon atoms is induced by strong wall-liquid forces. Importantly, the pressure confinement phase diagram with negative slopes for LLPT lines indicates that, under high pressure, the LLPT is mainly confinement-induced, but under low pressure, it becomes dominantly pressure-induced. PMID:26859609

We study the effects of topological (connectivity) disorder on phasetransitions. We identify a broad class of random lattices whose disorder fluctuations decay much faster with increasing length scale than those of generic random systems, yielding a wandering exponent of ω=(d-1)/(2d) in d dimensions. The stability of clean critical points is thus governed by the criterion (d+1)ν>2 rather than the usual Harris criterion dν>2, making topological disorder less relevant than generic randomness. The Imry-Ma criterion is also modified, allowing first-order transitions to survive in all dimensions d>1. These results explain a host of puzzling violations of the original criteria for equilibrium and nonequilibrium phasetransitions on random lattices. We discuss applications, and we illustrate our theory by computer simulations of random Voronoi and other lattices. PMID:25279615

RNA is a biomolecule that is involved in nearly all aspects of cellular functions. In order to perform many of these functions, RNA molecules have to fold into specific secondary structures. This folding is driven by the tendency of the bases to form Watson-Crick base pairs. Beyond the biological importance of RNA, the relatively simple rules for structure formation of RNA make it a very interesting system from the statistical physics point of view. We will present examples of phasetransitions in RNA secondary structure formation that are amenable to analytical descriptions. A special focus will be on aggregation between several RNA molecules which is important for some regulatory circuits based on RNA structure, triplet repeat diseases like Huntington's, and as a model for prion diseases. We show that depending on the relative strength of the intramolecular and the intermolecular base pairing, RNA molecules undergo a transition into an aggregated phase and quantitatively characterize this transition.

We consider the formation of finite-size domains in lipid bilayers consisting of saturated and hybrid lipids. First, we describe a monolayer model that includes a coupling between a compositional scalar field and a two-dimensional vectorial order parameter. Such a coupling yields an effective two-dimensional microemulsion free energy for the lipid monolayer, and its characteristic length of compositional modulations can be considered as the origin of finite-size domains in biological membranes. Next, we consider a coupled bilayer composed of two modulated monolayers and discuss the static and dynamic properties of concentration fluctuations above the transition temperature. We also investigate the micro-phase separation below the transition temperature and compare the micro-phase separated structures with statics and dynamics of concentration fluctuations above the transition.

In the course of a non-equilibrium continuous phasetransition, the dynamics ceases to be adiabatic in the vicinity of the critical point as a result of the critical slowing down (the divergence of the relaxation time in the neighborhood of the critical point). This enforces a local choice of the broken symmetry and can lead to the formation of topological defects. The Kibble-Zurek mechanism (KZM) was developed to describe the associated nonequilibrium dynamics and to estimate the density of defects as a function of the quench rate through the transition. During recent years, several new experiments investigating formation of defects in phasetransitions induced by a quench both in classical and quantum mechanical systems were carried out. At the same time, some established results were called into question. We review and analyze the Kibble-Zurek mechanism focusing in particular on this surge of activity, and suggest possible directions for further progress.

Using an effective interionic interaction potential (EIOP), the pressure induced structural phase transformation from ZnS-type (B3) to NaCl-type (B1) structure in group III Post-Transition Metal Nitrides [TMN; TM=Ga and Tl] were investigated. The long range Coulomb, van der Waals (vdW) interaction and the short-range repulsive interaction upto second-neighbor ions within the Hafemeister and Flygare approach with modified ionic charge are properly incorporated in the EIOP. The vdW coefficients are computed following the Slater-Kirkwood variational method, as both the ions are polarizable. The estimated value of the phasetransition pressure (Pt) and the magnitude of the discontinuity in volume at the transition pressure are consistent as compared to the reported data.

Let y(x) be a smooth sigmoidal curve, y(n) be its nth derivative and {xm,i} and {xa,i}, i = 1,2,…, be the set of points where respectively the derivatives of odd and even order reach their extreme values. We argue that if the sigmoidal curve y(x) represents a phasetransition, then the sequences {xm,i} and {xa,i} are both convergent and they have a common limit xc that we characterize as the critical point of the phasetransition. In this study, we examine the logistic growth curve and the Susceptible-Infected-Removed (SIR) epidemic model as typical examples of symmetrical and asymmetrical transition curves. Numerical computations indicate that the critical point of the logistic growth curve that is symmetrical about the point (x0, y0) is always the point (x0, y0) but the critical point of the asymmetrical SIR model depends on the system parameters. We use the description of the sol-gel phasetransition of polyacrylamide-sodium alginate (SA) composite (with low SA concentrations) in terms of the SIR epidemic model, to compare the location of the critical point as described above with the "gel point" determined by independent experiments. We show that the critical point tc is located in between the zero of the third derivative ta and the inflection point tm of the transition curve and as the strength of activation (measured by the parameter k/η of the SIR model) increases, the phasetransition occurs earlier in time and the critical point, tc, moves toward ta.

We give a concrete experimental scheme for engineering the insulator-superfluid transition of light in a one-dimensional (1-D) array of coupled superconducting stripline resonators. In our proposed architecture, the on-site interaction and the photon hopping rate can be tuned independently by adjusting the transition frequencies of the charge qubits inside the resonators and at the resonator junctions, respectively, which permits us to systematically study the quantum phasetransition of light in a complete parameter space. By combining the techniques of photon-number-dependent qubit transition and fast read-out of the qubit state using a separate low-Q resonator mode, the statistical property of the excitations in each resonator can be obtained with a high efficiency. An analysis of the various decoherence sources and disorders shows that our scheme can serve as a guide to coming experiments involving a small number of coupled resonators.

We investigate the effects of disorder within the T = 0 Brinkman-Rice scenario for the Mott metal-insulator transition in two dimensions. For sufficiently weak disorder the transition retains the Mott character, as signaled by the vanishing of the local quasiparticle weights Z_{i} and strong screening of the renormalized site energies at criticality. In contrast to the behavior in high dimensions, here the local spatial fluctuations of quasiparticle parameters are strongly enhanced in the critical regime, with a distribution function P(Z) approximately Z;{alpha-1} and alpha --> 0 at the transition. This behavior indicates a robust emergence of an electronic Griffiths phase preceding the metal-insulator transition, in a fashion surprisingly reminiscent of the "infinite randomness fixed point" scenario for disordered quantum magnets. PMID:19519046

I study a dimer model on the square lattice with nearest neighbor exclusion as the only interaction. Detailed simulations using tomographic entropic sampling show that as the chemical potential is varied, there is a strongly discontinuous phasetransition, at which the particle density jumps by about 18% of its maximum value, 1/4. The transition is accompanied by the onset of orientational order, to an arrangement corresponding to the {1/2, 0, 1/2} structure identified by Phares et al. [Physica B 409, 1096 (2011)] in a dimer model with finite repulsion at fixed density. Using finite-size scaling and Binder's cumulant, the expected scaling behavior at a discontinuous transition is verified in detail. The discontinuous transition can be understood qualitatively given that the model possesses eight equivalent maximum-density configurations, so that its coarse-grained description corresponds to that of the q = 8 Potts model.

For the past 17 years we have been developing new technology to resolve cooperative phasetransitions to the level of t = ¦T/Tc-1¦ ~ 10-10, where T is the temperature and Tc that of the transition. Samples of helium near the lambda point (2.1768 K) in microgravity conditions are expected to exhibit transitions at least this sharp. Currently we are approaching the launch of an experiment to measure the heat capacity singularity through the lambda transition with a resolution of about 4×10-10. This experiment involves an instrument developed by Stanford that will be flown in the JPL Low Temperature Research Facility. In this paper we describe the hardware for this program and some additional flight experiments that are currently being considered.

Immunoglobulin is a Y-shaped molecule that functions as an antibody to neutralize pathogens. In special cases where there is a high concentration of immunoglobulin molecules, self-aggregation can occur and the molecules undergo phasetransitions. This prevents the molecules from completing their function. We used a simplified model of 2-Dimensional Y-molecules with three identical arms on a triangular lattice with 2-dimensional Grand Canonical Ensemble. The molecules were permitted to be placed, removed, rotated or moved on the lattice. Once phase coexistence was found, we used histogram reweighting and multicanonical sampling to calculate our phase diagram.

On the basis of the assumption of the electron density fluctuation at the band degradation, a calculation parameter (the radius R) of the half-width of the probability distribution over the coordinate R is identified at the level of the maximum electron density fluctuation (at a maximum of the Gaussian function). Based on an analysis of the crystallization process and high polymorphic transformations bcc → fcc, the reasons for the formation of bcc, fcc, hexagonal, and tetragonal structures from the liquid phase, as well as for the high temperature bcc → hcp transition in the solid phase are established using the calculated parameter (the radius R) in the solid and liquid phases.

An exact analysis of the Ising model with infinite-range interactions in a random field and a local mean-field theory in three dimensions is carried out leading to a phase diagram with several coexistence surfaces and lines of critical points. The results show that the phase diagram depends crucially on whether the distribution of random fields is symmetric or not. Thus, Ising-like phasetransitions in a porous medium (the asymmetric case) are in a different universality class from the conventional random-field model (symmetric case).

We introduce a stochastic algorithm that acts as a prime-number generator. The dynamics of this algorithm gives rise to a continuous phasetransition, which separates a phase where the algorithm is able to reduce a whole set of integers into primes and a phase where the system reaches a frozen state with low prime density. We present both numerical simulations and an analytical approach in terms of an annealed approximation, by means of which the data are collapsed. A critical slowing-down phenomenon is also outlined. PMID:17677398

We study two distinctly ordered condensed phases of polypeptide molecules, amyloid fibrils and amyloidlike microcrystals, and the first-order twisting phasetransition between these two states. We derive a single free-energy form which connects both phases. Our model identifies relevant degrees of freedom for describing the collective behavior of supramolecular polypeptide structures, reproduces accurately the results from molecular dynamics simulations as well as from experiments, and sheds light on the uniform nature of the dimensions of different peptide fibrils. PMID:23102370

In regions where a high pressure phase is in equilibrium with a low pressure phase, the bulk modulus defined by the P-V relationship is greatly reduced. Here we evaluate the effect of such transitions on the P wave velocity. A model, where cation diffusion is the rate limiting factor, is used to project laboratory data to the conditions of a seismic wave propagating in the two-phase region. We demonstrate that for the minimum expected effect there is a significant reduction of the seismic velocity, as large as 10% over a narrow depth range.

Kinetically frustrated bosons at half filling in the presence of a competing nearest-neighbor repulsion support a wide supersolid regime on the two-dimensional triangular lattice. We study this model on a two-leg ladder using the finite-size density-matrix renormalization-group method, obtaining a phase diagram which contains three phases: a uniform superfluid (SF), an insulating charge density wave (CDW) crystal, and a bond ordered insulator (BO). We show that the transitions from SF to CDW and SF to BO are continuous in nature, with critical exponents varying continuously along the phase boundaries, while the transition from CDW to BO is found to be first order. The phase diagram is also found to contain an exactly solvable Majumdar Ghosh point, and reentrant SF to CDW phasetransitions.

We show that placing a quantum system in contact with an environment can enhance non-Fermi-liquid correlations, rather than destroying quantum effects as is typical. The system consists of two quantum dots in series with two leads; the highly resistive leads couple charge flow through the dots to the electromagnetic environment (noise). The similarity to the two impurity Kondo model suggests that there will be a quantum phasetransition between a Kondo phase and a local singlet phase. However, this transition is destabilized by charge tunneling between the two leads. Our main result is that sufficiently strong quantum noise suppresses this charge transfer and leads to stabilization of the quantum phasetransition. We present the phase diagram, the ground state degeneracy at the four fixed points, and the leading temperature dependence of the conductance near these points. Partially supported by (1) the U.S. DOE, Division of Materials Sciences and Engineering, under Grant No. DE-SC0005237 and (2) FAPESP (BRAZIL) under Grant 2014/26356-9.

The entanglement exhibits extremal or singular behavior near quantum critical points (QCPs) in many condensed matter models. These intriguing phenomena, however, still call for a widely accepted understanding. In this paper we study this issue in holographic framework. We investigate the connection between the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE) and the quantum phasetransition (QPT) in a lattice-deformed Einstein-Maxwell-Dilaton theory. Novel backgrounds exhibiting metal-insulator transitions (MIT) have been constructed in which both metallic phase and insulating phase have vanishing entropy density in zero temperature limit. We find that the first order derivative of HEE with respect to lattice parameters exhibits extremal behavior near QCPs. We propose that it would be a universal feature that HEE or its derivatives with respect to system parameters can characterize QPT in a generic holographic system. Our work opens a window for understanding the relation between entanglement and the QPT from a holographic perspective.

Biominerals include mollusk shells and the skeletons of algae, sponges, corals, sea urchins and most other animals. The function of biominerals are diverse: mechanical support, attack, defense, grinding, biting, and chewing, gravitational and magnetic field sensing, light focusing, and many others. The exquisite nanostructure of biominerals is directly controlled by the organisms, which have evolved to master the chemico-physical aspects of mineralization. By controlling the inorganic precursor nanoparticle size, packing, and phasetransitions, organisms efficiently fill space, produce tough and hard structures, with micro- or macroscopic morphology optimized for their functions. Specifically, this talk will address two key questions: Q: How are the beautiful biomineral morphologies achieved? A: Using amorphous precursor phases, with phasetransitions kinetically regulated (retarded) by proteins. Q: How do organisms co-orient their single-crystalline biominerals? A: Controlling the propagation of crystallinity one nanoparticle at a time, not atom-by-atom.

The time τ of the spin-Peierls phasetransition is analyzed theoretically as a function of the duration τ{sub p} of the exciting light pulse and the average number x{sub 0} of absorbed photons per magnetic ion after the transmission of the pulse. It is shown that the phasetransition occurs at x{sub 0} > x{sub c}. The critical value x{sub c} is determined as a function of the duration τ{sub p} of the light pulse. A photoinduced variation in the optical reflection coefficient R is calculated as a function of time t. The results of calculation are compared with experimental data on ultrafast photoinduced melting of the low-temperature spin-Peierls phase into potassium tetracyanoquinodimethan (K-TCNQ)

We apply the chiral SU(3) quark mean field model to study the properties of strange hadronic matter at finite temperature. The liquid-gas phasetransition is studied as a function of the strangeness fraction. The pressure of the system cannot remain constant during the phasetransition, since there are two independent conserved charges (baryon and strangeness number). In a range of temperatures around 15 MeV (precise values depending on the model used) the equation of state exhibits multiple bifurcates. The difference in the strangeness fraction f{sub s} between the liquid and gas phases is small when they coexist. The critical temperature of strange matter turns out to be a nontrivial function of the strangeness fraction.

A general framework for analyzing the recently discovered phasetransitions in the steady state of dissipation-driven open quantum systems is still lacking. To fill this gap, we extend the so-called fidelity approach to quantum phasetransitions to open systems whose steady state is a Gaussian fermionic state. We endow the manifold of correlation matrices of steady states with a metric tensor g measuring the distinguishability distance between solutions corresponding to a different set of control parameters. The phase diagram can then be mapped out in terms of the scaling behavior of g and connections with the Liouvillean gap and the model correlation functions unveiled. We argue that the fidelity approach, thanks to its differential-geometric and information-theoretic nature, provides insights into dissipative quantum critical phenomena as well as a general and powerful strategy to explore them. PMID:25353417

Two-dimensional monolayer materials are a highly anomalous class of materials under vigorous exploration. Mo- and W-dichalcogenides are especially unusual two-dimensional materials because they exhibit at least three different monolayer crystal structures with strongly differing electronic properties. This intriguing yet poorly understood feature, which is not present in graphene, may support monolayer phase engineering, phase change memory and other applications. However, knowledge of the relevant phase boundaries and how to engineer them is lacking. Here we show using alloy models and state-of-the-art density functional theory calculations that alloyed MoTe2-WTe2 monolayers support structural phasetransitions, with phasetransition temperatures tunable over a large range from 0 to 933 K. We map temperature-composition phase diagrams of alloys between pure MoTe2 and pure WTe2, and benchmark our methods to analogous experiments on bulk materials. Our results suggest applications for two-dimensional materials as phase change materials that may provide scale, flexibility, and energy consumption advantages. PMID:26647117

We investigate, via Monte Carlo simulations, the phase structure of a system of closed, nonintersecting but otherwise noninteracting, loops in 3 Euclidean dimensions. The loops correspond to closed trajectories of massive particles and we find a phasetransition as a function of their mass. We identify the order parameter as the average length of the loops at equilibrium. This order parameter exhibits a sharp increase as the mass is decreased through a critical value, the behavior seems to be a crossover transition. We believe that the model represents an effective description of the broken-symmetry sector of the 2+1 dimensional Abelian Higgs model, in the extreme strong coupling limit. The massive gauge bosons and the neutral scalars are decoupled, and the relevant low-lying excitations correspond to vortices and antivortices. The functional integral can be approximated by a sum over simple, closed vortex loop configurations. We present a novel fashion to generate nonintersecting closed loops, starting from a tetrahedral tessellation of three space. The two phases that we find admit the following interpretation: the usual Higgs phase and a novel phase which is heralded by the appearance of effectively infinitely long loops. We compute the expectation value of the Wilson loop operator and that of the Polyakov loop operator. The Wilson loop exhibits perimeter law behavior in both phases implying that the transition corresponds neither to the restoration of symmetry nor to confinement. The effective interaction between external charges is screened in both phases, however there is a dramatic increase in the polarization cloud in the novel phase as shown by the energy shift introduced by the Wilson loop.

This paper reports the manipulation of surface plasmon polaritons (SPPs) in a liquid plasmonic metal by changing its physical phase. Dynamic properties were controlled by solid-to-liquid phasetransitions in 1D Ga gratings that were fabricated using a simple molding process. Solid and liquid phases were found to exhibit different plasmonic properties, where light coupled to SPPs more efficiently in the liquid phase. We exploited the supercooling characteristics of Ga to access plasmonic properties associated with the liquid phase over a wider temperature range (up to 30 °C below the melting point of bulk Ga). Ab initio density functional theory-molecular dynamic calculations showed that the broadening of the solid-state electronic band structure was responsible for the superior plasmonic properties of the liquid metal. PMID:22823536

Despite relevance to disparate areas such as cloud microphysics and tribology, major gaps in the understanding of the structures and phasetransitions of low-dimensional water ice remain. Here we report a first principles study of confined 2D ice as a function of pressure. We find that at ambient pressure hexagonal and pentagonal monolayer structures are the two lowest enthalpy phases identified. Upon mild compression the pentagonal structure becomes the most stable and persists up to ca. 2 GPa at which point square and rhombic phases are stable. The square phase agrees with recent experimental observations of square ice confined within graphene sheets. We also find a double layer AA stacked square ice phase, which clarifies the difference between experimental observations and earlier force field simulations. This work provides a fresh perspective on 2D confined ice, highlighting the sensitivity of the structures observed to both the confining pressure and width.

Seismic attenuation has become a topical issue in geophysics because of the potential information about temperature, as a function of depth in the earth, which it might convey. Aside from the expected role of grain boundaries, dislocations, etc., attenuation associated with phase transformations could be as marked and important as the changes in elastic moduli by which the latter are identified. In the present study, anelastic loss mechanisms associated with phasetransitions in perovskites have been studied by Resonant Ultrasound Spectroscopy (10^5 - 10^6 Hz, relatively low stress and low strain ~10^-7), and by Dynamic Mechanical Analysis (10^-2 - 10^2 Hz, relatively high stress and high strain ~10^-5 - 10^-3), in the temperature range 10 - 1200 K. (Mg, Fe)SiO3 has the Pnma structure and CaSiO3 could have the Pm3m or I4/mcm structure under lower mantle conditions. In addition, a stability field for the Imma structure would be easy to miss. It is difficult to investigate transitions occurring in these directly, so use has been made of analogue phases. BeCeO3 and Sr(ZrxTi(1-x))O3 have been studied for dissipation effects associated with displacive phasetransitions, and LaCoO3 has been investigated for the high spin/low spin behaviour of Co3+. The transitions in BaCeO3, i.e. Pm3m - R3c - Imma - Pnma, and the transitions in Sr(ZrxTi(1-x))O3, i.e. Pm3m - I4/mcm - Imma - Pnma, cover a wider variety of transitions than has been investigated in other analogue materials. The possible loss mechanisms identified in BeCeO3 are twin wall movement, two phase interface movement (perhaps around clusters of one structure in another close to a first order phasetransition), and an unidentified process which gives to a Debye-like anomaly at low temperature in the stability field of the Pnma structure. Possible loss mechanisms in Sr(ZrxTi(1-x))O3 are twin wall movement and two phase interface movement. Associated with the high spin - intermediate spin transition in LaCoO3 near 500 K

Phasetransitions of the ionic liquids n-butyl-trimethylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, [N1114][NTf2], and methyl-tributylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, [N1444][NTf2], were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, and Raman spectroscopy. XRD and Raman spectra were obtained as a function of temperature at atmospheric pressure, and also under high pressure at room temperature using a diamond anvil cell (DAC). [N1444][NTf2] experiences glass transition at low temperature, whereas [N1114][NTf2] crystallizes or not depending on the cooling rate. Both the ionic liquids exhibit glass transition under high pressure. XRD and low-frequency Raman spectra provide a consistent physical picture of structural ordering-disordering accompanying the thermal events of crystallization, glass transition, cold crystallization, pre-melting, and melting. Raman spectra in the high-frequency range of some specific cation and anion normal modes reveal conformational changes of the molecular structures along phasetransitions. PMID:27306016

Phasetransitions of the ionic liquids n-butyl-trimethylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, [N1114][NTf2], and methyl-tributylammonium bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide, [N1444][NTf2], were investigated by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements, and Raman spectroscopy. XRD and Raman spectra were obtained as a function of temperature at atmospheric pressure, and also under high pressure at room temperature using a diamond anvil cell (DAC). [N1444][NTf2] experiences glass transition at low temperature, whereas [N1114][NTf2] crystallizes or not depending on the cooling rate. Both the ionic liquids exhibit glass transition under high pressure. XRD and low-frequency Raman spectra provide a consistent physical picture of structural ordering-disordering accompanying the thermal events of crystallization, glass transition, cold crystallization, pre-melting, and melting. Raman spectra in the high-frequency range of some specific cation and anion normal modes reveal conformational changes of the molecular structures along phasetransitions.

An evolutionary model was recently introduced for sympatric, phenotypic evolution over a variable fitness landscape with assortative mating (Dees & Bahar 2010). Organisms in the model are described by coordinates in a two-dimensional phenotype space, born at random coordinates with limited variation from their parents as determined by a mutation parameter, mutability. The model has been extended to include both neutral evolution and asexual reproduction in Scott et al (submitted). It has been demonstrated that a second order, non-equilibrium phasetransition occurs for the temporal dynamics as the mutability is varied, for both the original model and for neutral conditions. This transition likely belongs to the directed percolation universality class. In contrast, the spatial dynamics of the model shows characteristics of an ordinary percolation phasetransition. Here, we characterize the phasetransitions exhibited by this model by determining critical exponents for the relaxation times, characteristic lengths, and cluster (species) mass distributions. Missouri Research Board; J.S. McDonnell Foundation

In this work we present the features of the hadron-quark phasetransition diagrams in which the pions are included in the system. To construct such diagrams we use two different models in the description of the hadronic and quark sectors. At the quark level, we consider two distinct parametrizations of the Polyakov-Nambu-Jona-Lasinio (PNJL) models. In the hadronic side, we use a well known relativistic mean-field (RMF) nonlinear Walecka model. We show that the effect of the pions on the hadron-quark phase diagrams is to move the critical end point (CEP) of the transitions lines. Such an effect also depends on the value of the critical temperature (T{sub 0}) in the pure gauge sector used to parametrize the PNJL models. Here we treat the phasetransitions using two values for T{sub 0}, namely, T{sub 0}= 270 MeV and T{sub 0}= 190 MeV. The last value is used to reproduce lattice QCD data for the transition temperature at zero chemical potential.

We investigate the production of a stochastic background of gravitational waves in the electroweak phasetransition. We consider extensions of the Standard Model which can give very strongly first-order phasetransitions, such that the transition fronts either propagate as detonations or run away. To compute the bubble wall velocity, we estimate the friction with the plasma and take into account the hydrodynamics. We track the development of the phasetransition up to the percolation time, and we calculate the gravitational wave spectrum generated by bubble collisions, magnetohydrodynamic turbulence, and sound waves. For the kinds of models we consider, we find parameter regions for which the gravitational waves are potentially observable at the planned space-based interferometer eLISA. In such cases, the signal from sound waves is generally dominant, while that from bubble collisions is the least significant of them. Since the sound waves and turbulence mechanisms are diminished for runaway walls, the models with the best prospects of detection at eLISA are those which do not have such solutions. In particular, we find that heavy extra bosons provide stronger gravitational wave signals than tree-level terms.

It is a common belief in economics and social science that if there is more information available for agents to gather in a human system, the system can become more efficient. The belief can be easily understood according to the well-known efficient market hypothesis. In this work, we attempt to challenge this belief by investigating a complex adaptive system, which is modeled by a market-directed resource-allocation game with a directed random network. We conduct a series of controlled human experiments in the laboratory to show the reliability of the model design. As a result, we find that even under a small information concentration, the system can still almost reach the optimal (balanced) state. Furthermore, the ensemble average of the system’s fluctuation level goes through a continuous phasetransition. This behavior means that in the second phase if too much information is shared among agents, the system’s stability will be harmed instead, which differs from the belief mentioned above. Also, at the transition point, the ensemble fluctuations of the fluctuation level remain at a low value. This phenomenon is in contrast to the textbook knowledge about continuous phasetransitions in traditional physical systems, namely, fluctuations will rise abnormally around a transition point since the correlation length becomes infinite. Thus, this work is of potential value to a variety of fields, such as physics, economics, complexity science, and artificial intelligence.

A preliminary quantitative study to match the lattice QCD simulation on the chiral and deconfining phasetransitions of QCD in the bottom-up holographic framework is given. We constrain the relation between dilaton field ϕ and metric warp factor Ae and get several reasonable models in the Einstein-Dilaton system. Using the potential reconstruction approach, we solve the corresponding gravity background. Then we fit the background-related parameters by comparing the equation of state with the two-flavor lattice QCD results. After that we study the temperature dependent behavior of Polyakov loop and chiral condensate under those background solutions. We find that the results are in good agreement with the two-flavor lattice results. All the studies about the equation of state, the Polyakov loop and the chiral condensate signal crossover behavior of the phasetransitions, which are consistent with the current understanding on the QCD phasetransitions with physical quark mass. Furthermore, the extracted transition temperatures are comparable with the two-flavor lattice QCD results.

Isosymmetric phasetransitions (IPT), which show no change in occupied Wyckoff positions or crystallographic space group, are exceedingly rare in crystalline matter because most condensed systems respond to external stimuli by undergoing ``conventional'' symmetry-lowering displacive, martensitic or reconstructive transitions. In this work, we use first-principles density functional calculations to identify an elusive IPT in orthorhombic AB O3 perovskite oxides with tendency towards rhombohedral symmetry. Using perovskite LaGa O3 as our prototypical system, we show that the latent isosymmetric phasetransition, which manifests as an abrupt change in the octahedral rotation axis, is accessible only with an external elastic constraint---bi-axial strain. We show the transition originates from a soft phonon that describes the geometric connectivity and relative phase of the Ga O6 polyhedra. By connecting the origin of IPT to a chemical and structural incompatibility between the lattice and the elastic constraints, we describe how subtle changes in bulk orthorhombic and monoclinic symmetries are critical to the complete engineering of structure-correlated electronic properties in thin films. Because bi-axial strain is the critical parameter controlling the IPT, we suggest heteroepitaxial synthesis of IPT materials is a plausible route to realize high- κ dielectric actuators with variable band gaps and dielectric anisotropies.

... 4(a)(3)(iii) of the SBIR Policy Directive, which was published on August 6, 2012, at 77 FR 46806 and the STTR Policy Directive, which was published the same day at 77 FR 46855, requires each agency to... ADMINISTRATION SBIR/STTR Phase I to Phase II Transition Benchmarks AGENCY: U.S. Small Business...

The phasetransition of VO2 from a monoclinic insulator to a rutile metal, which occurs thermally at TC = 340 K, can also be driven by strong photoexcitation. The ultrafast dynamics during this photoinduced phasetransition (PIPT) have attracted great scientific attention for decades, as this approach promises to answer the question of whether the insulator-to-metal (IMT) transition is caused by electronic or crystallographic processes through disentanglement of the different contributions in the time domain. We review our recent results achieved by femtosecond time-resolved photoelectron, optical, and coherent phonon spectroscopy and discuss them within the framework of a selection of latest, complementary studies of the ultrafast PIPT in VO2. We show that the population change of electrons and holes caused by photoexcitation launches a highly non-equilibrium plasma phase characterized by enhanced screening due to quasi-free carriers and followed by two branches of non-equilibrium dynamics: (i) an instantaneous (within the time resolution) collapse of the insulating gap that precedes charge carrier relaxation and significant ionic motion and (ii) an instantaneous lattice potential symmetry change that represents the onset of the crystallographic phasetransition through ionic motion on longer timescales. We discuss the interconnection between these two non-thermal pathways with particular focus on the meaning of the critical fluence of the PIPT in different types of experiments. Based on this, we conclude that the PIPT threshold identified in optical experiments is most probably determined by the excitation density required to drive the lattice potential change rather than the IMT. These considerations suggest that the IMT can be driven by weaker excitation, predicting a transiently metallic, monoclinic state of VO2 that is not stabilized by the non-thermal structural transition and, thus, decays on ultrafast timescales.

We present a scaling law for the energy and speed of transition waves in dissipative and diffusive media. By considering uniform discrete lattices and continuous solids, we show that—for arbitrary highly nonlinear many-body interactions and multistable on-site potentials—the kinetic energy per density transported by a planar transition wave front always exhibits linear scaling with wave speed and the ratio of energy difference to interface mobility between the two phases. We confirm that the resulting linear superposition applies to highly nonlinear examples from particle to continuum mechanics.

We study C 2 weakly order preserving circle maps with a flat interval. The main result of the paper is about a sharp transition from degenerate geometry to bounded geometry depending on the degree of the singularities at the boundary of the flat interval. We prove that the non-wandering set has zero Hausdorff dimension in the case of degenerate geometry and it has Hausdorff dimension strictly greater than zero in the case of bounded geometry. Our results about circle maps allow to establish a sharp phasetransition in the dynamics of Cherry flows.

We report here on modeling of non-equilibrium phasetransitions in Bi samples isentropically compressed to 120 GPa by a ramped drive, which is produced using the Janus laser. In the experiments, the Bi samples are attached to windows of LiF or sapphire, and the velocity history of the sample-window interface is recorded with line VISAR. The 1D response of the targets is modeled using a multiphase Bi EOS, the Andrews-Hayes method for non-equilibrium transitions, and a Boettger-Wallace kinetics model. The pressure drive is deduced by back integration of VISAR data from shots performed with Al samples.

For the complex Ginzburg-Landau equation on a large periodic interval, we show that the transition from defect to phase turbulence is more accurately described as a smooth crossover rather than as a sharp continuous transition. We obtain this conclusion by using a parallel computer to calculate various order parameters, especially the density of space-time defects, the Lyapunov dimension density, and correlation lengths. Remarkably, the correlation length of the field amplitude fluctuations is, within a constant factor, equal to the length scale defined by the dimension density.

We present further methods to investigate in how far atmospheric precipitation can be described as a continuous phasetransition. Previous work has shown a scale-free range in the rainfall event size distribution and a suggestive power-law pickup in the rain rate above a critical level of instability. Here we examine an additional technique for estimating critical parameters, we investigate the rain rate pickup for an example of an extreme event, namely satellite observations of Hurricane Katrina, and develop an analysis of fluctuations in the rain rate to estimate uncertainties in the tuning parameters relevant for the transition.

An open question about the dynamical behavior of materials is how phasetransition occurs in highly non-equilibrium systems. One important class of study is the excitation of a solid by an ultrafast, intense laser. The preferential heating of electrons by the laser field gives rise to initial states dominated by hot electrons in a cold lattice. Using a femtosecond laser pump-probe approach, we have followed the temporal evolution of the optical properties of such a system. The results show interesting correlation to non-thermal melting and lattice disordering processes. They also reveal a liquid-plasma transition when the lattice energy density reaches a critical value.

We investigate the holographic entanglement entropy (HEE) of a strip geometry in four dimensional Q-lattice backgrounds, which exhibit metal-insulator transitions in the dual field theory. Remarkably, we find that the HEE always displays a peak in the vicinity of the quantum critical points. Our model provides the first direct evidence that the HEE can be used to characterize the quantum phasetransition (QPT). We also conjecture that the maximization behavior of HEE at quantum critical points would be universal in general holographic models.

New experimental results are reported for structural transitions at high pressure in several III-V compounds and two II-VI compounds. These data, together with earlier results, are then compared with the predictions of model calculations of Van Vechten. Experimental transition pressures are often at variance with calculated values. However, his calculation assumes that the high pressure phase is metallic, with the beta-Sn structure. The present results show that several compounds assume an ionic NaCl structure at high pressure, while others have neither the beta-Sn nor NaCl structure.

A computational investigation of the high-pressure phase sequence of the heaviest alkali hydroxides, RbOH and CsOH, shows that the phase diagram of both compounds is richer than hitherto thought. First-principles calculations suggest, based on energetics and comparisons to experimental diffraction and spectroscopy signatures, that the high-pressure phase RbOH-VI, stable above 6 GPa in experiment, should be assigned the KOH-VI structure type, and features localised hydrogen-bonded (OH)4 units. Meanwhile, a new high-pressure phase CsOH-VII is predicted to be stable above 10 GPa in an isosymmetric phasetransition that, like RbOH-VI, marks the transition from layered to three-dimensional network structures under increased compression. Both new phases highlight an unexpected flexibility of hydrogen bond network formation in a series of compounds that seemingly only vary in the cation size, and potential consequences for similar systems, such as water-carrying minerals, are discussed briefly. PMID:27271485

The crystal structures of europium niobate, EuNbO3, have been examined over a wide temperature range between 20 and 500 K using synchrotron X-ray diffraction. We have observed two successive structural phasetransitions at 360 and 460 K. Below 350 K, EuNbO3 adopts an orthorhombic perovskite structure (space group Imma), which is characterized by NbO6 octahedral tilting about the pseudocubic two-fold axis. The result differs from previous reports in which EuNbO3 was assigned to a cubic aristotype (space group Pm 3 barm) of perovskite at room temperature. At around 360 K, EuNbO3 undergoes a first-order phasetransition to a tetragonal symmetry (space group I4/mcm) with the NbO6 octahedral tilting about the pseudocubic four-fold axis. As the temperature is further increased, the I4/mcm tetragonal phase changes into the Pm 3 barm cubic aristotype at 460 K. The tetragonal-to-cubic transformation is characterized as a continuous phasetransition.

Bending-induced phasetransition in monolayer black phosphorus is investigated through first principles calculations. By wrapping the layer into nanotubes along armchair and zigzag directions with different curvatures, it is found that phasetransitions of the tubes occur when radius of curvature is smaller than 5 Å in bending along the zigzag direction, while the tubes remain stable along the armchair direction. Small zigzag tubes with odd numbered monolayer unit cells tend to transfer toward armchair-like phases, but the tubes with even numbered monolayer unit cells transfer into new complex bonding structures. The mechanism for the bending-induced phasetransition is revealed by the comprehensive analyses of the bending strain energies, electron density distributions, and band structures. The results show significant anisotropic bending stability of black phosphorus and should be helpful for its mechanical cleavage fabrication in large size. Project supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 11021262, 11172303, and 11132011) and the National Basic Research Program of China (Grant No.2012CB937500).

The electronic structure and high pressure properties of samarium monochalcogenides SmS, SmSe and SmTe have been reported by using tight binding linear muffin-tin-orbital (TB-LMTO) method within the local density approximation (LDA). The total energy as a function of volume is evaluated. It is found that these monochalcogenides are stable in NaCl-type structure under ambient pressure. We predict a structural phasetransition from NaCl-type (B1-phase) structure to CsCl-type (B2-type) structure for these compounds. Phasetransition pressures were found to be 1.7, 4.4 and 6.6 GPa, for SmS, SmSe and SmTe respectively. Apart from this, the lattice parameter (a0), bulk modulus (B0), band structure (BS) and density of states (DOS) are calculated. From energy band diagram we observed that these compounds exhibit metallic character. The calculated values of equilibrium lattice parameter and phasetransition pressure are in general good agreement with available data.

Statistical and thermodynamic properties of the anomalous multifractal structure of random interevent (or intertransaction) times were thoroughly studied by using the extended continuous-time random walk (CTRW) formalism of Montroll, Weiss, Scher, and Lax. Although this formalism is quite general (and can be applied to any interhuman communication with nontrivial priority), we consider it in the context of a financial market where heterogeneous agent activities can occur within a wide spectrum of time scales. As the main general consequence, we found (by additionally using the Saddle-Point Approximation) the scaling or power-dependent form of the partition function, Z(q'). It diverges for any negative scaling powers q' (which justifies the name anomalous) while for positive ones it shows the scaling with the general exponent τ(q'). This exponent is the nonanalytic (singular) or noninteger power of q', which is one of the pilar of higher-order phasetransitions. In definition of the partition function we used the pausing-time distribution (PTD) as the central one, which takes the form of convolution (or superstatistics used, e.g. for describing turbulence as well as the financial market). Its integral kernel is given by the stretched exponential distribution (often used in disordered systems). This kernel extends both the exponential distribution assumed in the original version of the CTRW formalism (for description of the transient photocurrent measured in amorphous glassy material) as well as the Gaussian one sometimes used in this context (e.g. for diffusion of hydrogen in amorphous metals or for aging effects in glasses). Our most important finding is the third- and higher-order phasetransitions, which can be roughly interpreted as transitions between the phase where high frequency trading is most visible and the phase defined by low frequency trading. The specific order of the phasetransition directly depends upon the shape exponent α defining the stretched

Can astrophysics explain Fermi’s paradox or the “Great Silence” problem? If available, such explanation would be advantageous over most of those suggested in literature which rely on unverifiable cultural and/or sociological assumptions. We suggest, instead, a general astrobiological paradigm which might offer a physical and empirically testable paradox resolution. Based on the idea of James Annis, we develop a model of an astrobiological phasetransition of the Milky Way, based on the concept of the global regulation mechanism(s). The dominant regulation mechanisms, arguably, are γ-ray bursts, whose properties and cosmological evolution are becoming well-understood. Secular evolution of regulation mechanisms leads to the brief epoch of phasetransition: from an essentially dead place, with pockets of low-complexity life restricted to planetary surfaces, it will, on a short (Fermi-Hart) timescale, become filled with high-complexity life. An observation selection effect explains why we are not, in spite of the very small prior probability, to be surprised at being located in that brief phase of disequilibrium. In addition, we show that, although the phase-transition model may explain the “Great Silence”, it is not supportive of the “contact pessimist” position. To the contrary, the phase-transition model offers a rational motivation for continuation and extension of our present-day Search for ExtraTerrestrial Intelligence (SETI) endeavours. Some of the unequivocal and testable predictions of our model include the decrease of extinction risk in the history of terrestrial life, the absence of any traces of Galactic societies significantly older than human society, complete lack of any extragalactic intelligent signals or phenomena, and the presence of ubiquitous low-complexity life in the Milky Way.

Transition metal mononitrides are known as refractory compounds, and they have, relatively, high hardness, brittleness, melting point, and superconducting transition temperature, and they also have interesting optical, electronic, catalytic, and magnetic properties. Evolution of structural properties would be an important step towards realizing the potential technological scenario of this material of class. In the present study, an effective interionic interaction potential (EIOP) is developed to investigate the pressure induced phasetransitions in IB transition metal nitrides TMN [TM = Cu, Ag, and Au] compounds. The long range Coulomb, van der Waals (vdW) interaction and the short-range repulsive interaction upto second-neighbor ions within the Hafemeister and Flygare approach with modified ionic charge are properly incorporated in the EIOP. The vdW coefficients are computed following the Slater-Kirkwood variational method, as both the ions are polarizable. The estimated value of the phasetransition pressure (Pt) and the magnitude of the discontinuity in volume at the transition pressure are consistent as compared to the reported data.

Transition metal mononitrides are known as refractory compounds, and they have, relatively, high hardness, brittleness, melting point, and superconducting transition temperature, and they also have interesting optical, electronic, catalytic, and magnetic properties. Evolution of structural properties would be an important step towards realizing the potential technological scenario of this material of class. In the present study, an effective interionic interaction potential (EIOP) is developed to investigate the pressure induced phasetransitions in IB transition metal nitrides TMN [TM = Cu, Ag, and Au] compounds. The long range Coulomb, van der Waals (vdW) interaction and the short-range repulsive interaction upto second-neighbor ions within the Hafemeister and Flygare approach with modified ionic charge are properly incorporated in the EIOP. The vdW coefficients are computed following the Slater-Kirkwood variational method, as both the ions are polarizable. The estimated value of the phasetransition pressure (Pt) and the magnitude of the discontinuity in volume at the transition pressure are consistent as compared to the reported data.

The insulator-metal transition in hydrogen is one of the most outstanding problems in condensed matter physics. The high-pressure metallic phase is now predicted to be liquid atomic from T =0 K to very high temperatures. We have conducted measurements of optical properties of hot dense hydrogen in the region of 1.1-1.7 Mbar and up to 2200 K in a diamond anvil cell using pulsed laser heating of the sample. We present evidence in two forms: a plateau in the heating curves (average laser power vs temperature) characteristic of a first-order phasetransition with latent heat, and changes in transmittance and reflectance characteristic of a metal for temperatures above the plateau temperature. For thick films the reflectance saturates at ~0.5. The phase line of this transition has a negative slope in agreement with theories of the so-called plasma phasetransition. The NSF, Grant DMR-1308641, the DOE Stockpile Stewardship Academic Alliance Program, Grant DE-FG52-10NA29656, and NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship Program, Award NNX14AP17H supported this research.

Rocks in shear compression in the quasibrittle regime present a deformation starting to be localized at the biggest scales around peak stress. We present some universal fea- tures of the mechanical load curves obtained in triaxial tests on many different rocks, namely a power-law with a common exponent in these curves around peak stress. Those features, salient of a continuous phasetransition, are analytically derived as such in a theory relying on an approximate evaluation of the distribution over the con- figurations of the population of the developping microcracks in subsets of the rock, based on maximization of Shannon's entropy under constraints, and a micromechan- ical model for the elastic interactions between the defects. The localization transition around peak stress is shown in this framework to be a continuous phasetransition, the power-law analyzed is recovered, and an approximate autocorrelation function between microcracks is predicted around peak stress, showing a diverging autocorre- lation length.

I present a numerical package (CosmoTransitions) for analyzing finite-temperature cosmological phasetransitions driven by single or multiple scalar fields. The package analyzes the different vacua of a theory to determine their critical temperatures (where the vacuum energy levels are degenerate), their supercooling temperatures, and the bubble wall profiles which separate the phases and describe their tunneling dynamics. I introduce a new method of path deformation to find the profiles of both thin- and thick-walled bubbles. CosmoTransitions is freely available for public use.Program summaryProgram Title: CosmoTransitionsCatalogue identifier: AEML_v1_0Program summary URL: http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/summaries/AEML_v1_0.htmlProgram obtainable from: CPC Program Library, Queen's University, Belfast, N. IrelandLicensing provisions: Standard CPC licence, http://cpc.cs.qub.ac.uk/licence/licence.htmlNo. of lines in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 8775No. of bytes in distributed program, including test data, etc.: 621096Distribution format: tar.gzProgramming language: Python.Computer: Developed on a 2009 MacBook Pro. No computer-specific optimization was performed.Operating system: Designed and tested on Mac OS X 10.6.8. Compatible with any OS with Python installed.RAM: Approximately 50 MB, mostly for loading plotting packages.Classification: 1.9, 11.1.External routines: SciPy, NumPy, matplotLibNature of problem: I describe a program to analyze early-Universe finite-temperature phasetransitions with multiple scalar fields. The goal is to analyze the phase structure of an input theory, determine the amount of supercooling at each phasetransition, and find the bubble-wall profiles of the nucleated bubbles that drive the transitions.Solution method: To find the bubble-wall profile, the program assumes that tunneling happens along a fixed path in field space. This reduces the equations of motion to one dimension, which can then be solved using the overshoot

Turbulence is one of the most frequently encountered non-equilibrium phenomena in nature, yet characterizing the transition that gives rise to turbulence in basic shear flows has remained an elusive task. Although, in recent studies, critical points marking the onset of sustained turbulence have been determined for several such flows, the physical nature of the transition could not be fully explained. In extensive experimental and computational studies we show for the example of Couette flow that the onset of turbulence is a second-order phasetransition and falls into the directed percolation universality class. Consequently, the complex laminar-turbulent patterns distinctive for the onset of turbulence in shear flows result from short-range interactions of turbulent domains and are characterized by universal critical exponents. More generally, our study demonstrates that even high-dimensional systems far from equilibrium such as turbulence exhibit universality at onset and that here the collective dynamics obeys simple rules.

We study nonequilibrium phasetransitions of reaction-diffusion systems defined on randomly diluted lattices, focusing on the transition across the lattice percolation threshold. To develop a theory for this transition, we combine classical percolation theory with the properties of the supercritical nonequilibrium system on a finite-size cluster. In the case of the contact process, the interplay between geometric criticality due to percolation and dynamical fluctuations of the nonequilibrium system leads to a different universality class. The critical point is characterized by ultraslow activated dynamical scaling and accompanied by strong Griffiths singularities. To confirm the universality of this exotic scaling scenario we also study the generalized contact process with several (symmetric) absorbing states and we support our theory by extensive Monte Carlo simulations. PMID:19518178

Critical slowing down (CSD) reflects the decline in resilience of equilibria near a bifurcation and may reveal early warning signals (EWS) of ecological phasetransitions. We studied CSD in the recruitment dynamics of 120 stocks of three Pacific salmon (Oncorhynchus spp.) species in relation to critical transitions in fishery models. Pink salmon (Oncorhynchus gorbuscha) exhibited increased variability and autocorrelation in populations that had a growth parameter, r, close to zero, consistent with EWS of extinction. However, models and data for sockeye salmon (Oncorhynchus nerka) indicate that portfolio effects from heterogeneity in age-at-maturity may obscure EWS. Chum salmon (Oncorhynchus keta) show intermediate results. The data do not reveal EWS of Ricker-type bifurcations that cause oscillations and chaos at high r. These results not only provide empirical support for CSD in some ecological systems, but also indicate that portfolio effects of age structure may conceal EWS of some critical transitions. PMID:24759855

We investigate shape phasetransitions in odd nuclei within the Interacting Boson Fermion Model. Special attention is given to the case of the transition from the vibrational behaviour to the stable axial deformation. The odd particle is assumed to be moving in the three single particle orbitals j = 1/2,3/2,5/2 with a boson-fermion Hamiltonian that leads to the occurrence of the SU{sup BF}(3) boson-fermion symmetry when the boson part approaches the SU(3) condition. Both energy spectra and electromagnetic transitions show characteristic patterns similar to those displayed by the even nuclei at the corresponding critical point. The role of the additional particle in characterizing the properties of the critical points in finite quantal systems is investigated by resorting to the formalism based on the intrinsic frame.

A simple model is constructed to study the phase diagram and thermodynamic properties of methanol, which is described as a dimer of an apolar sphere mimicking the methyl group and a sphere with core-softened potential as the hydroxyl group. Performing classical Monte Carlo simulations, we obtained the phase diagram, showing a second critical point between two different liquid phases. Evaluating systems with a different number of particles, we extrapolate to infinite size in accordance with Ising universality class to obtain bulk values for critical temperature, pressure, and density. Strong evidence that the structure of the liquid changes upon transition from high- to low-density phase was provided. From the experimentally determined hydrogen bond strength and length in methanol and water, we propose where the second critical point of methanol should be. PMID:25615092

The temporal evolution of domain structure and its piezoelectric behavior of ferroelectric material BaTiO3 during the transition process from rhombohedral to tetragonal phase under an applied electric field have been studied by employing Landau-Ginzburg theory and the phase-field method. The results obtained show that, during the transformation process, the intermediate phase was monoclinic MA phase, and several peak values of piezoelectric coefficient appeared at the stage where obvious change of domain pattern occurred. In addition, by comparing the cases of applied electric field with different frequencies, it was found that the maximum piezoelectric coefficient obtained decreased with increasing frequency value. These results are of great significance in tuning the properties of engineering domains in ferroelectrics, and could provide more fundamentals to the design of ferroelectric devices.

We examine the zero-temperature phase diagram of the two-dimensional Levin-Wen string-net model with Fibonacci anyons in the presence of competing interactions. Combining high-order series expansions around three exactly solvable points and exact diagonalizations, we find that the non-Abelian doubled Fibonacci topological phase is separated from two nontopological phases by different second-order quantum critical points, the positions of which are computed accurately. These trivial phases are separated by a first-order transition occurring at a fourth exactly solvable point where the ground-state manifold is infinitely many degenerate. The evaluation of critical exponents suggests unusual universality classes. PMID:25167030

Despite relevance to disparate areas such as cloud microphysics and tribology, major gaps in the understanding of the structures and phasetransitions of low-dimensional water ice remain. Here, we report a first principles study of confined 2D ice as a function of pressure. We find that at ambient pressure hexagonal and pentagonal monolayer structures are the two lowest enthalpy phases identified. Upon mild compression, the pentagonal structure becomes the most stable and persists up to ∼2 GPa, at which point the square and rhombic phases are stable. The square phase agrees with recent experimental observations of square ice confined within graphene sheets. This work provides a fresh perspective on 2D confined ice, highlighting the sensitivity of the structures observed to both the confining pressure and the width. PMID:26824547

We have simulated the model of Employment, Production and Consumption (EPC) using Monte Carlo. The EPC model is an agent based model that mimics very basic rules of industrial economy. From the perspective of physics, the nature of the interactions in the EPC model represents multi-agent interactions where the relations among agents follow the key laws for circulation of capital and money. Monte Carlo simulations of the stochastic model reveal phasetransition in the model economy. The two phases are the phase with full unemployment and the phase with nearly full employment. The economy switches between these two states suddenly as a reaction to a slight variation in the exogenous parameter, thus the system exhibits strong non-linear behavior as a response to the change of the exogenous parameters.

Despite relevance to disparate areas such as cloud microphysics and tribology, major gaps in the understanding of the structures and phasetransitions of low-dimensional water ice remain. Here, we report a first principles study of confined 2D ice as a function of pressure. We find that at ambient pressure hexagonal and pentagonal monolayer structures are the two lowest enthalpy phases identified. Upon mild compression, the pentagonal structure becomes the most stable and persists up to ˜2 GPa , at which point the square and rhombic phases are stable. The square phase agrees with recent experimental observations of square ice confined within graphene sheets. This work provides a fresh perspective on 2D confined ice, highlighting the sensitivity of the structures observed to both the confining pressure and the width.

Motivated by recent numerical results, we study the quantum phasetransitions between Z{sub 2} spin-liquid, Neel-ordered, and various valence-bond solid (VBS) states on the honeycomb and square lattices, with emphasis on the staggered VBS. In contrast to the well-understood columnar VBS order, the staggered VBS is not described by an XY-order parameter with Z{sub N} anisotropy close to these quantum phasetransitions. Instead, we demonstrate that on the honeycomb lattice, the staggered VBS is more appropriately described as an O(3)- or CP(2)-order parameter with cubic anisotropy, while on the square lattice it is described by an O(4)- or CP(3)-order parameter.

We present a mean field theory to describe anisotropic deformations of a cholesteric elastomer without solvent molecules and a cholesteric liquid crystalline gel immersed in isotropic solvents at a thermal equilibrium state. Based on the neoclassical rubber theory of nematic elastomers, we derive an elastic energy and a twist distortion energy, which are important to determine the shape of a cholesteric elastomer (or gel). We demonstrate that when the elastic energy dominates in the free energy, the cholesteric elastomer causes a spontaneous compression in the pitch axis and elongates along the director on the plane perpendicular to the pitch axis. Our theory can qualitatively describe the experimental results of a cholesteric elastomer. We also predict the first-order volume phasetransitions and anisotropic deformations of a gel at the cholesteric-isotropic phasetransition temperature. Depending on a chirality of a gel, we find a prolate or oblate shape of cholesteric gels. PMID:25956120

In this work we study on a 2D square lattice a recent version of the Naming Game, an agent-based model used for describing the emergence of linguistic structures. The system is open-ended and agents can invent new words throughout the evolution of the game, picking them up from a pool characterised by a Gaussian distribution with standard deviation σ. The model displays a nonequilibrium phasetransition at a critical point σc ≈ 25.6, which separates an absorbing consensus state from an active fragmented state where agents continuously exchange different words. The finite-size scaling analysis of our simulations strongly suggests that the phasetransition is discontinuous.

We present a mean field theory to describe anisotropic deformations of a cholesteric elastomer without solvent molecules and a cholesteric liquid crystalline gel immersed in isotropic solvents at a thermal equilibrium state. Based on the neoclassical rubber theory of nematic elastomers, we derive an elastic energy and a twist distortion energy, which are important to determine the shape of a cholesteric elastomer (or gel). We demonstrate that when the elastic energy dominates in the free energy, the cholesteric elastomer causes a spontaneous compression in the pitch axis and elongates along the director on the plane perpendicular to the pitch axis. Our theory can qualitatively describe the experimental results of a cholesteric elastomer. We also predict the first-order volume phasetransitions and anisotropic deformations of a gel at the cholesteric-isotropic phasetransition temperature. Depending on a chirality of a gel, we find a prolate or oblate shape of cholesteric gels.

The Supersymmetric Custodial Triplet Model, a supersymmetric generalization of the Georgi-Machacek model, has proven to be an interesting modification of the MSSM. It extends the MSSM Higgs sector by three extra SU(2) L triplets in such a way that approximate custodial invariance is preserved and ρ-parameter deviations are kept under control. By means of a sizeable triplet contribution to electroweak breaking the model is able to generate a barrier at tree level between the false vacuum and the electroweak one. This will result in a strong first order phasetransition for an important region of the parameter space. We also look at the gravitational waves that could be generated as a result of the phasetransition and show how future interferometers could be used as a probe of the model.

Chemical functionalization of low-dimensional materials such as nanotubes, nanowires and graphene leads to profound changes in their properties and is essential for solubilizing them in common solvents. Covalent attachment of functional groups is generally achieved at defect sites, which facilitate electron transfer. Here, we describe a simple and general method for covalent functionalization of two-dimensional transition metal dichalcogenide nanosheets (MoS₂, WS₂ and MoSe₂), which does not rely on defect engineering. The functionalization reaction is instead facilitated by electron transfer between the electron-rich metallic 1T phase and an organohalide reactant, resulting in functional groups that are covalently attached to the chalcogen atoms of the transition metal dichalcogenide. The attachment of functional groups leads to dramatic changes in the optoelectronic properties of the material. For example, we show that it renders the metallic 1T phase semiconducting, and gives it strong and tunable photoluminescence and gate modulation in field-effect transistors. PMID:25515889

The dynamics of quantum phasetransitions pose one of the most challenging problems in modern many-body physics. Here, we study a prototypical example in a clean and well-controlled ultracold atom setup by observing the emergence of coherence when crossing the Mott insulator to superfluid quantum phasetransition. In the 1D Bose–Hubbard model, we find perfect agreement between experimental observations and numerical simulations for the resulting coherence length. We, thereby, perform a largely certified analog quantum simulation of this strongly correlated system reaching beyond the regime of free quasiparticles. Experimentally, we additionally explore the emergence of coherence in higher dimensions, where no classical simulations are available, as well as for negative temperatures. For intermediate quench velocities, we observe a power-law behavior of the coherence length, reminiscent of the Kibble–Zurek mechanism. However, we find nonuniversal exponents that cannot be captured by this mechanism or any other known model. PMID:25775515

The existence of structure on large (100 Mpc) scales, and limits to anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), have imperiled models of structure formation based solely upon the standard cold dark matter scenario. Novel scenarios, which may be compatible with large scale structure and small CMBR anisotropies, invoke nonlinear fluctuations in the density appearing after recombination, accomplished via the use of late time phasetransitions involving ultralow mass scalar bosons. Herein, the statistical mechanics are studied of such phasetransitions in several models involving naturally ultralow mass pseudo-Nambu-Goldstone bosons (pNGB's). These models can exhibit several interesting effects at high temperature, which is believed to be the most general possibilities for pNGB's.

Nonequilibrium phasetransitions, which are defined by the formation of macroscopic transient domains, are optically dark and cannot be observed through conventional temperature- or pressure-change studies. We have directly determined the structural dynamics of such a nonequilibrium phasetransition in a cuprate superconductor. Ultrafast electron crystallography with the use of a tilted optical geometry technique afforded the necessary atomic-scale spatial and temporal resolutions. The observed transient behavior displays a notable "structural isosbestic" point and a threshold effect for the dependence of c-axis expansion (Deltac) on fluence (F), with Deltac/F = 0.02 angstrom/(millijoule per square centimeter). This threshold for photon doping occurs at approximately 0.12 photons per copper site, which is unexpectedly close to the density (per site) of chemically doped carriers needed to induce superconductivity. PMID:17446397

The phasetransition of the Ising model is investigated on a planar lattice that has a fractal structure. On the lattice, the number of bonds that cross the border of a finite area is doubled when the linear size of the area is extended by a factor of 4. The free energy and the spontaneous magnetization of the system are obtained by means of the higher-order tensor renormalization group method. The system exhibits the order-disorder phasetransition, where the critical indices are different from those of the square-lattice Ising model. An exponential decay is observed in the density-matrix spectrum even at the critical point. It is possible to interpret that the system is less entangled because of the fractal geometry. PMID:26871057

In this paper I argue that the mechanism of muscle contraction is similar to the mechanism of contraction in most artificial muscles. Artificial muscles typically contract by a phase- transition. Muscle is thought to contract by a sliding- filament mechanism in which one set of filaments is driven past another by the action of cyclically rotating cross- bridges -- much like the mechanism of rowing. However, the evidence is equally consistent with a mechanism in which the filaments themselves contract, much like the collapse of polymers during a phase-transition. Muscle contains three principal polymer types, organized neatly within a framework. There is evidence that all three can contract. It appears that the relative contributions of each filament are designed to confer strength, speed and versatility on this natural machine. The principles of natural contraction may be useful in establishing optimal design principles for artificial muscles.

Artificial muscles typically contrast by a phase-transition. Muscle is thought to contract by a different mechanism - a filament-sliding mechanism in which one set of filaments is driven past another by the action of cyclically rotating cross-bridges. The concept is much like the mechanism of rowing. The evidence, however, is equally consistent with a mechanism in which the filaments themselves contract, much like the condensation of polymers during a phase-transition. Muscle contains three principal polymer types organized neatly into a characteristic framework All three polymers can shorten. The contributions of each filament may be designed to confer versatility, as well as sped and strength, on this biological machine. The principles of natural contraction may be useful in establishing optimal design principles for artificial muscles.

The dynamics of track development due to the passage of relativistic heavy ions through solids is a long-standing issue relevant to nuclear materials, age-dating of minerals, space exploration, and nanoscale fabrication of novel devices. We have integrated experimental and simulation approaches to investigate nanoscale phasetransitions under the extreme conditions created within single tracks of relativistic ions in Gd2O3(TiO2)x and Gd2Zr2-xTixO7. Track size and internal structure depend on energy-density deposition, irradiation temperature, and material composition. Molecular dynamics methods based on the thermal spike model have simulated, for the first time, the internal structure of individual tracks, consistent with experimental observations. Individual ion tracks have nanoscale core-shell structures that provide a unique record of the phasetransition pathways under extreme conditions.

We consider Hawking-Page phasetransition between the BTZ black hole with M ≥ 0 and the thermal soliton with M = - 1 in new massive gravity. By comparing the on-shell free energies, we can see that there exists a critical temperature. The thermal soliton is more probable than the black hole below the critical temperature while the black hole is more probable than the thermal soliton above the critical temperature. By consistently constructing the off-shell free energies taking into account the conical singularity, we show that there exist infinite non-equilibrium states connecting the BTZ black hole and the thermal soliton, so that they provide a picture of continuous evolution of the phasetransition.

Phasetransition in odd-N isotopes 99,101,103Pd are investigated via the E-GOS (E-Gamma Over Spin) curves, which strongly suggest a structure evolution from vibration to rotation along the yrast lines with increasing spin. Theoretical calculations have been performed for the ground state bands of 99,101,103Pd in the framework of the cranked shell model (CSM) and the alignment properties observed experimentally are analyzed employing this model. The results show that the phasetransition in the ground state bands of 99,101,103Pd can be interpreted as the valence nucleons start to occupy the g9/2 proton orbitals with increasing spin which would polarize the core to a small, but rigid quadrupole deformation. Supported by Natural Science Foundation of Guangxi (2014jjBA10016, 2014jjDA10012) and National Natural Science Foundation of China (11465005)

Three types of non-volatile memory cells of different designs based on phasetransitions are developed and implemented. The effect of the design features of the cells and their active-region sizes on the switching characteristics and normal operation of the cells is considered as a whole. The causes of failure of the cells are analyzed from the obtained series of scanning electron images upon level-by-level etching of the samples. It is shown that the cell design is the most critical factor from the viewpoint of switching to the high-resistance state. The causes of this fact are analyzed and the criterion for providing the steady operation of cells of non-volatile memory based on phasetransitions is formulated.

The phasetransition of the Ising model is investigated on a planar lattice that has a fractal structure. On the lattice, the number of bonds that cross the border of a finite area is doubled when the linear size of the area is extended by a factor of 4. The free energy and the spontaneous magnetization of the system are obtained by means of the higher-order tensor renormalization group method. The system exhibits the order-disorder phasetransition, where the critical indices are different from those of the square-lattice Ising model. An exponential decay is observed in the density-matrix spectrum even at the critical point. It is possible to interpret that the system is less entangled because of the fractal geometry.

We present a mean field theory to describe anisotropic deformations of a cholesteric elastomer without solvent molecules and a cholesteric liquid crystalline gel immersed in isotropic solvents at a thermal equilibrium state. Based on the neoclassical rubber theory of nematic elastomers, we derive an elastic energy and a twist distortion energy, which are important to determine the shape of a cholesteric elastomer (or gel). We demonstrate that when the elastic energy dominates in the free energy, the cholesteric elastomer causes a spontaneous compression in the pitch axis and elongates along the director on the plane perpendicular to the pitch axis. Our theory can qualitatively describe the experimental results of a cholesteric elastomer. We also predict the first-order volume phasetransitions and anisotropic deformations of a gel at the cholesteric-isotropic phasetransition temperature. Depending on a chirality of a gel, we find a prolate or oblate shape of cholesteric gels.

Aqueous suspensions of sepiolite clay rods in water tend to form gels on increase of concentration. Here it is shown how addition of a small amount (0.1% of the clay mass) of a common stabiliser for clay suspensions, sodium polyacrylate, can allow the observation of an isotropic-nematic liquid crystal phasetransition. This transition was found to move to higher clay concentrations upon adding NaCl, with samples containing 10(-3) M salt or above only displaying a gel phase. Even samples that initially formed liquid crystals had a tendency to form gels after several weeks, possibly due to Mg(2+) ions leaching from the clay mineral. PMID:25313468

Dynamical quantum phasetransitions (DQPTs) at critical times appear as nonanalyticities during nonequilibrium quantum real-time evolution. Although there is evidence for a close relationship between DQPTs and equilibrium phasetransitions, a major challenge is still to connect to fundamental concepts such as scaling and universality. In this work, renormalization group transformations in complex parameter space are formulated for quantum quenches in Ising models showing that the DQPTs are critical points associated with unstable fixed points of equilibrium Ising models. Therefore, these DQPTs obey scaling and universality. On the basis of numerical simulations, signatures of these DQPTs in the dynamical buildup of spin correlations are found with an associated power-law scaling determined solely by the fixed point's universality class. An outlook is given on how to explore this dynamical scaling experimentally in systems of trapped ions. PMID:26551800

Dynamical quantum phasetransitions (DQPTs) at critical times appear as nonanalyticities during nonequilibrium quantum real-time evolution. Although there is evidence for a close relationship between DQPTs and equilibrium phasetransitions, a major challenge is still to connect to fundamental concepts such as scaling and universality. In this work, renormalization group transformations in complex parameter space are formulated for quantum quenches in Ising models showing that the DQPTs are critical points associated with unstable fixed points of equilibrium Ising models. Therefore, these DQPTs obey scaling and universality. On the basis of numerical simulations, signatures of these DQPTs in the dynamical buildup of spin correlations are found with an associated power-law scaling determined solely by the fixed point's universality class. An outlook is given on how to explore this dynamical scaling experimentally in systems of trapped ions.

Fluid helicity is an important observable that captures topological properties of hydrodynamics. It naturally emerges in the context of parity-breaking fluids with knotted vortex lines. If the fluid constituents exhibit quantum anomalies the topological nature of fluid helicity can be elucidated using microscopic physics. In this case the helicity is given by a polynomial function of temperature and chiral chemical potential and completely fixed by the anomalies. We explain this relation and address the question of phase structure of such fluids using methods of information geometry. We introduce the metric on a parameter space and show that a non-zero vorticity leads to a curvature on the statistical manifold. We calculate the curvature invariant and analyze its divergences, which contain the information about phasetransitions of the system. The transition points are universal and expressed in terms of ratios of anomaly coefficients.

Inhomogeneities associated with the cosmological QCD and electroweak phasetransitions produce hydrodynamical perturbations, longitudinal sounds and rotations. It has been demonstrated by Hindmarsh et al. [Phys. Rev. Lett. 112, 041301 (2014)] that the sounds produce gravity waves well after the phasetransition is over. We further argue that, under certain conditions, an inverse acoustic cascade may occur and move sound perturbations from the (UV) momentum scale at which the sound is originally produced to much smaller (IR) momenta. The weak turbulence regime of this cascade is studied via the Boltzmann equation, possessing stationary power and time-dependent self-similar solutions. We suggest certain indices for the strong turbulence regime as well, into which the cascade eventually proceeds. Finally, we point out that two on-shell sound waves can produce one on-shell gravity wave, and we evaluate the rate of the process using a standard sound loop diagram.

We study the thermodynamic phasetransition in the rainbow Schwarzschild black hole where the metric depends on the energy of the test particle. Identifying the black hole temperature with the energy from the modified dispersion relation, we obtain the modified entropy and thermodynamic energy along with the modified local temperature in the cavity to provide well defined black hole states. It is found that apart from the conventional critical temperature related to Hawking-Page phasetransition there appears an additional critical temperature which is of relevance to the existence of a locally stable tiny black hole; however, the off-shell free energy tells us that this black hole should eventually tunnel into the stable large black hole. Finally, we discuss the reason why the temperature near the horizon is finite in the rainbow black hole by employing the running gravitational coupling constant, whereas it is divergent near the horizon in the ordinary Schwarzschild black hole.

We consider the problem of coloring the vertices of a large sparse random graph with a given number of colors so that no adjacent vertices have the same color. Using the cavity method, we present a detailed and systematic analytical study of the space of proper colorings (solutions). We show that for a fixed number of colors and as the average vertex degree (number of constraints) increases, the set of solutions undergoes several phasetransitions similar to those observed in the mean field theory of glasses. First, at the clustering transition, the entropically dominant part of the phase space decomposes into an exponential number of pure states so that beyond this transition a uniform sampling of solutions becomes hard. Afterward, the space of solutions condenses over a finite number of the largest states and consequently the total entropy of solutions becomes smaller than the annealed one. Another transition takes place when in all the entropically dominant states a finite fraction of nodes freezes so that each of these nodes is allowed a single color in all the solutions inside the state. Eventually, above the coloring threshold, no more solutions are available. We compute all the critical connectivities for Erdos-Rényi and regular random graphs and determine their asymptotic values for a large number of colors. Finally, we discuss the algorithmic consequences of our findings. We argue that the onset of computational hardness is not associated with the clustering transition and we suggest instead that the freezing transition might be the relevant phenomenon. We also discuss the performance of a simple local Walk-COL algorithm and of the belief propagation algorithm in the light of our results. PMID:17930223

Guiding the self-assembly of materials by controlling the shape of the individual particle constituents is a powerful approach to material design. In particular the assembly of colloidal particles driven by depletants is a versatile playground for investigating this potential. We find that colloidal ``superballs'' may assemble into distinct phases that depend on both their shape and the size of the depletants. By using a mixture of depletants, one of which is size-tunable, we can explore reversible transitions between these phases.

A dynamic model for neural networks that explicitly takes into account the existence of several time scales without discretizing the time is studied analytically via the use of path integrals. The maximum capacity of the network is found to be that of the Hopfield model divided by 1+a2, with a the ratio of the refractory period to the action-potential duration. We obtain the phase diagram as a function of a, the capacity, and the temperature. The overall phase diagram is rich in structure, exhibiting first-order transitions as well as continuous ones.

Multiscale Modeling of Shock-Induced PhaseTransitions in Iron Emily Carter, Kyle Caspersen, Adrian Lew and Michael Ortiz We investigate the bcc to hcp phasetransition in iron under both pressure and shear. We use DFT to map out the energy landscape of uniformly deformed iron, including its equation of state and its elastic moduli as a function of volume. >From these data we construct a nonlinear-elastic energy density which gives the energy density for arbitrary - not necessarily small - deformations. The energy density contains two wells corresponding to the bcc and hcp phases. We take this multi-well energy density as a basis for the investigation of the effect of shear on the phase diagram of iron. We allow for mixed states consisting alternating lamellae of bcc and hcp phases, and, for each macroscopic deformation, we determine the optimal microstructure of the mixed state by energy minimization using a sequential-lamination algorithm. We find that the superposition of shearing deformation on a volume change has the effect of inducing mixed states of varying spatial complexity, and of markedly lowering the critical transformation pressure. Indeed, we find that shear must be taken into consideration in order to obtain agreement with measured transformation pressures. Finally, we demonstrate how the microstructure model can be integrated into large-scale finite element calculations of shocked iron.

Strong, thermally persistent, isotropic negative thermal expansion (NTE) is unusual and has been observed in only a handful of materials. Scandium trifluoride (ScF3) features large isotropic thermal expansion persistent over a 1000K range of temperature. More interestingly, no structural phasetransition has been reported above 0.4K and it retains the simple cubic structure up to its high melting point of 1800K, which is unusual compared with other transition metal trifluorides. Here, we present a combined inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) and x-ray diffraction study of ScF3, which reveals some exciting features of this material. The low-energy (~1 meV) vibrational modes corresponding to M and R points of simple cubic Brillouin zone could explain NTE in ScF3, and we find that the low temperature IXS data show a central peak which is especially strong at these points. In addition, the whole M-R branch undergoes unusual softening at low temperature. We determine that this mode softens nearly to zero energy as the temperature approaches to 0K. These signature portend an approach to a quantum phasetransition of this insulating, nonmagnetic simple cubic perovskite material ScF3. The central peak, soft mode and thermal expansion could all be consequences of this incipient transition. The connections we have established in the phenomenology of ScF3 may be present in other perovskites as well as other materials that display strong NTE

Topological quantum phasetransitions intrinsically intertwine self-similarity and topology of many-electron wave-functions, and divining them is one of the most significant ways to advance understanding in condensed matter physics. Our focus is to investigate an unconventional class of the transitions between insulators and Dirac semimetals whose description is beyond conventional pseudo relativistic Dirac Hamiltonian. At the transition without the long-range Coulomb interaction, the electronic energy dispersion along one direction behaves like a relativistic particle, linear in momentum, but along the other direction it behaves like a non-relativistic particle, quadratic in momentum. Various physical systems ranging from TiO2-VO2 heterostructure to organic material α-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 under pressure have been proposed to have such anisotropic dispersion relation. Here, we discover a novel quantum criticality at the phasetransition by incorporating the long range Coulomb interaction. Unique interplay between the Coulomb interaction and electronic critical modes enforces not only the anisotropic renormalization of the Coulomb interaction but also marginally modified electronic excitation. In connection with experiments, we investigate several striking effects in physical observables of our novel criticality.

Background: The neutron-rich Ba isotopes with only six valence protons represent the beginning of the collective rotation-vibration band structure. The sharp shape phasetransition at N = 88 -90 observed in Ce-Gd isotones is not exhibited in Ba-146144 , which renders their analysis interesting. Also there are ambiguities in the spin and band assignments. Purpose: To study their spectra empirically and to compare with predictions from an interacting boson model and microscopic dynamic pairing plus quadrupole model to explain the smooth shape transition at N = 88 -90 . Method: We compare the results of the calculation in the interacting boson models (IBM-1) and IBM-2 and the dynamic pairing plus quadrupole model with experiment and illustrate the variation in level structure of the Ba isotopes with N. The absence of sharp phasetransition at N = 88 -90 is examined. Results: The ambiguous spin and parity of levels of the vibrational bands are assigned on the basis of calculated K components and the decay characteristics. Conclusion: The second Iπ= 2+ states in Ba,146144 have K = 0 predominance, and Iπ=23+ states are K = 2 . The smooth transition at N = 88 -90 is explained.

Topological quantum phasetransitions intrinsically intertwine self-similarity and topology of many-electron wave-functions, and divining them is one of the most significant ways to advance understanding in condensed matter physics. Our focus is to investigate an unconventional class of the transitions between insulators and Dirac semimetals whose description is beyond conventional pseudo relativistic Dirac Hamiltonian. At the transition without the long-range Coulomb interaction, the electronic energy dispersion along one direction behaves like a relativistic particle, linear in momentum, but along the other direction it behaves like a non-relativistic particle, quadratic in momentum. Various physical systems ranging from TiO2-VO2 heterostructure to organic material α-(BEDT-TTF)2I3 under pressure have been proposed to have such anisotropic dispersion relation. Here, we discover a novel quantum criticality at the phasetransition by incorporating the long range Coulomb interaction. Unique interplay between the Coulomb interaction and electronic critical modes enforces not only the anisotropic renormalization of the Coulomb interaction but also marginally modified electronic excitation. In connection with experiments, we investigate several striking effects in physical observables of our novel criticality. PMID:26791803

The authors discuss predictions for the pion and kaon interferometry measurements in relativistic heavy ion collisions at SPS and RHIC energies. In particular, they confront relativistic transport model calculations that include explicitly a first-order phasetransition from a thermalized quark-gluon plasma to a hadron gas with recent data from the RHIC experiments. They critically examine the HBT-puzzle both from the theoretical as well as from the experimental point of view. Alternative scenarios are briefly explained.

We present a Monte Carlo algorithm that facilitates efficient parallel tempering simulations of the density of states g(E) . We show that the algorithm eliminates the supercritical slowing down in the case of the Q=20 and Q=256 Potts models in two dimensions, typical examples for systems with extreme first-order phasetransitions. As recently predicted, and shown here, the microcanonical heat capacity along the calorimetric curve has negative values for finite systems. PMID:17995052

We study quantum corrections to the classical Bianchi I and Bianchi IX universes. The modified dynamics is well motivated from the asymptotic safety program where the short-distance behavior of gravity is governed by a nontrivial renormalization group fixed point. The correction terms induce a phasetransition in the dynamics of the model, changing the classical, chaotic Kasner oscillations into a uniform approach to a point singularity. The resulting implications for the microscopic structure of spacetime are discussed.

We study the effect of electron-phonon interactions in the band topology of Dirac insulators, both at zero and finite temperature. Elaborating on recent theoretical work, we determine how and when phonons can drive a trivial insulator into a topological insulating phase. As an application, we evaluate the temperature-dependence of the critical thickness for the topological transition in CdTe/HgTe quantum wells.

The dynamics of a second-order phasetransition during inflation, which is induced by time-variation of spacetime curvature, is studied as a natural mechanism to produce topological defects of typical grand unification scales such as cosmic strings or global textures. It is shown that their distribution is almost scale-invariant with small- and large-scale cutoffs. Also discussed is how these cutoffs are given.

A new model equation of state is applied, based on realistic interparticle potentials and a self-consistent treatment of the internal levels, to fluid hydrogen at high density. This model shows a strong connection between molecular dissociation and pressure ionization. The possibility of a first-order plasma phasetransition is considered, and for which both the evolution in temperature and the critical point is given.

We propose a mechanism for prostate cancer cell lines growth, LNCaP and PC3 based on a Gompertz dynamics. This growth exhibits a multifractal behavior and a "second order" phasetransition. Finally, it was found that the cellular line PC3 exhibits a higher value of entropy production rate compared to LNCaP, which is indicative of the robustness of PC3, over to LNCaP and may be a quantitative index of metastatic potential tumors.

We consider an interaction of the nearest-neighbors and next nearest-neighbors for the mixed type p-adic λ-model with spin values (−1, +1) on a Cayley tree of order two. In the previous work we have proved the existence of the p-adic Gibbs measure for the model. In this work we have proved the existence of the phasetransition occurs for the model.

For a chaotic cavity with two identical leads each supporting N channels, we compute analytically, for large N, the full distribution of the conductance and the shot noise power and show that in both cases there is a central Gaussian region flanked on both sides by non-Gaussian tails. The distribution is weakly singular at the junction of Gaussian and non-Gaussian regimes, a direct consequence of two phasetransitions in an associated Coulomb gas problem.

Surface acoustic waves can provide valuable information on the condition of the crystal surface in the phasetransition region. Here, results of an experimental study of surface acoustic wave propagation in tryglycine sulfate along several different directions are presented. The greatest anomalies of the velocity and attenuation of the second harmonic are reported for surface acoustic waves propagating in the 001 direction of the (010) plane.

We propose a mechanism for avascular tumor growth based on a simple chemical network. This model presents a logistic behavior and shows a “second order” phasetransition. We prove the fractal origin of the empirical logistics and Gompertz constant and its relation to mitosis and apoptosis rate. Finally, the thermodynamics framework developed demonstrates the entropy production rate as a Lyapunov function during avascular tumor growth.

Aqueous two-phase systems contained within microdroplets enable a bottom-up approach to mimicking the dynamic microcompartmentation of biomaterial that naturally occurs within the cytoplasm of cells. Here, we demonstrate the on-demand generation of femtolitre aqueous two-phase droplets within a microfluidic oil channel. Gated pressure pulses were used to generate individual, stationary two-phase microdroplets with a well-defined time zero for carrying out controlled and sequential phase transformations over time. Reversible phasetransitions between single-phase, two-phase, and core-shell microbead states were obtained via evaporation-induced dehydration and on-demand water rehydration. In contrast to other microfluidic aqueous two-phase droplets, which require continuous flows and high-frequency droplet formation, our system enables the controlled isolation and reversible transformation of a single microdroplet and is expected to be useful for future studies in dynamic microcompartmentation and affinity partitioning.

Aqueous two-phase systems contained entirely within microdroplets enable a bottom-up approach to mimicking the dynamic microcompartmentation of biomaterial that naturally occurs within the cytoplasm of cells. Here, we demonstrate the on-demand generation of femtolitre aqueous two-phase droplets within a microfluidic oil channel. Gated pressure pulses were used to generate individual, stationary two-phase microdroplets with a well-defined time zero for carrying out controlled and sequential phase transformations over time. Reversible phasetransitions between single-phase, two-phase, and core-shell microgel states were obtained via evaporation-induced dehydration and on-demand water rehydration. In contrast to other microfluidic aqueous two-phase droplets, which require continuous flows and high-frequency droplet formation, our system enables the controlled isolation and reversible transformation of a single microdroplet and is expected to be useful for future studies in dynamic microcompartmentation and affinity partitioning.

In epidemiological modelling, dynamics on networks, and, in particular, adaptive and heterogeneous networks have recently received much interest. Here, we present a detailed analysis of a previously proposed model that combines heterogeneity in the individuals with adaptive rewiring of the network structure in response to a disease. We show that in this model, qualitative changes in the dynamics occur in two phasetransitions. In a macroscopic description, one of these corresponds to a local bifurcation, whereas the other one corresponds to a non-local heteroclinic bifurcation. This model thus provides a rare example of a system where a phasetransition is caused by a non-local bifurcation, while both micro- and macro-level dynamics are accessible to mathematical analysis. The bifurcation points mark the onset of a behaviour that we call network inoculation. In the respective parameter region, exposure of the system to a pathogen will lead to an outbreak that collapses but leaves the network in a configuration where the disease cannot reinvade, despite every agent returning to the susceptible class. We argue that this behaviour and the associated phasetransitions can be expected to occur in a wide class of models of sufficient complexity. PMID:27586612

Effects of nanostructuring on the magnetostructural response of the near-equiatomic FeRh phase were investigated in nanocomposite materials synthesized by rapid solidification and subsequent annealing of an alloy of nominal atomic composition (FeRh)5Cu95. Transmission electron microscopy studies confirm attainment of a phase-separated system of nanoscaled (˜10-15 nm diameter) precipitates, consistent with FeRh embedded in a Cu matrix. These nanoprecipitates are crystallographically aligned with the coarse-grained Cu matrix and possess an L10-type (CuAu 1) structure, in contrast to the B2 (CsCl)-type structure of bulk FeRh. It is proposed that the face-centered cubic crystal structure of the Cu matrix serves as a template for the formation and stabilization of the L10 structure in the FeRh nanoprecipitates. Magnetic measurements highlight the existence of multiple magnetic phases in the material exhibiting spin-glass (T ≤ 15 K), ferromagnetic and paramagnetic (T > 20 K) behavior. A thermally hysteretic magnetic transition, remarkably similar to the magnetostructural transition of bulk CsCl-type FeRh reported at Tt = 370 K, is observed in the nanostructured material at 130 K. This result not only emphasizes the sensitivity of the magnetic and structural properties of FeRh to changes in microstructural scale, but also highlights the potential for tailoring magnetostructural transitions in functional materials systems via nanostructuring.

Phylogeny reconstruction with global criteria is NP-complete or NP-hard, hence in general requires a heuristic search. We investigate the powerful, physically inspired, general-purpose heuristic simulated annealing, applied to phylogeny reconstruction. Simulated annealing mimics the physical process of annealing, where a liquid is gently cooled to form a crystal. During the search, periods of elevated specific heat occur, analogous to physical phasetransitions. These simulated annealing phasetransitions play a crucial role in the outcome of the search. Nevertheless, they have received comparably little attention, for phylogeny or other optimisation problems. We analyse simulated annealing phasetransitions during searches for the optimal phylogenetic tree for 34 real-world multiple alignments. In the same way in which melting temperatures differ between materials, we observe distinct specific heat profiles for each input file. We propose this reflects differences in the search landscape and can serve as a measure for problem difficulty and for suitability of the algorithm's parameters. We discuss application in algorithmic optimisation and as a diagnostic to assess parameterisation before computationally costly, large phylogeny reconstructions are launched. Whilst the focus here lies on phylogeny reconstruction under maximum parsimony, it is plausible that our results are more widely applicable to optimisation procedures in science and industry. PMID:27150349

The main virtue of the Inert Doublet Model (IDM) is that one of its spinless neutral bosons can play the role of Dark Matter. Assuming that the additional sources of CP violation are present in the form of higher dimensional operator(s) we reexamine the possibility that the model parameters for which the right number density of relic particles is predicted are compatible with the first-order phasetransition that could lead to electroweak baryogenesis. We find, taking into account recent indications from the LHC and the constraints from the electroweak precision data, that for a light DM (40-60 GeV) particle H0 and heavy, almost degenerate additional scalars H± and A0 this is indeed possible but the two parameters most important for the strength of the phasetransition: the common mass of H± and A0 and the trilinear coupling of the Higgs particle h0 to DM are then strongly constrained. H± and A0 must weight less than ∼ 440 GeV if the inert minimum is to be the lowest one and the value of the h0H0H0 coupling is limited by the XENON 100 data. We stress the important role of the zero-temperature part of the effective potential for the strength of the phasetransition.

Optical Raman spectra of a ferroelectric sodium nitrite crystal have been detected in a wide spectrum range at various temperatures, including the region of the ferroelectric phasetransition. A manifestation of a transverse soft polar mode of the A 1( z) type responsible for the ferroelectric phasetransition has been discovered in the spectrum at room temperature. This mode has been found to become overdamped even far from the ferroelectric phasetransition temperature. This mode also appears as a central peak under heating. It has been found that the pseudoscalar mode of the A 2 type has the highest intensity in the Raman spectrum of sodium nitrite. The frequency corresponding to the maximum intensity of this mode in the Raman spectrum varies from 130 cm-1 at 123 K to 106 cm-1 at T = 513 K. A fair agreement of the experimental data for the A 1( z) mode with the Lyddane-Sachs-Teller relation has been established. The polariton curves for the A 1( z) polar mode and the dispersion curves for axinons has been plotted.

To study the optical properties of polymeric samples, an experimental apparatus was designed on purpose and set up. The sample is a thin film enclosed between two glass slides and a PTFE frame, with a very thin thermocouple placed on sample for direct temperature measurement. This sample holder was placed between two aluminum slabs, equipped with a narrow slit for optical measurements and with electrical resistances for temperature control. Sample was enlightened by a laser diode, whereas transmitted light was detected with a photodiode. Measurements were carried out on polyethylene-terephtalate (PET) and two different polyamides, tested as pure polymers and blends. The thermal history imposed to the sample consisted in a rapid heating from ambient temperature to a certain temperature below the melting point, a stabilization period, and then a heating at constant rate. After a second stabilization period, the sample was cooled. The data obtained were compared with DSC measurements performed with the same thermal history. In correspondence with transitions detected via DSC (e.g. melting, crystallization and cold crystallization), the optical signal showed a steep variation. In particular, crystallization resulted in a rapid decrease of transmitted light, whereas melting gave up an increase of light transmitted by the sample. Further variations in transmitted light were recorded for blends, after melting: those results may be related to other phasetransitions, e.g. liquid-liquid phase separation. All things considered, the apparatus can be used to get reliable data on phasetransitions in polymeric systems.

In this paper we investigate in some detail the holographic ferromagnetic phasetransition in an AdS4 black brane background by introducing a massive 2-form field coupled to the Maxwell field strength in the bulk. In two probe limits, one is to neglect the back reaction of the 2-form field to the background geometry and to the Maxwell field, and the other to neglect the back reaction of both the Maxwell field and the 2-form field, we find that the spontaneous magnetization and the ferromagnetic phasetransition always happen when the temperature gets low enough with similar critical behavior. We calculate the DC resistivity in a semi-analytical method in the second probe limit and find it behaves as the colossal magnetic resistance effect in some materials. In the case with the first probe limit, we obtain the off-shell free energy of the holographic model near the critical temperature and compare with the Ising-like model. We also study the back reaction effect and find that the phasetransition is always second order. In addition, we find an analytical Reissner-Norström-like black brane solution in the Einstein-Maxwell-2-form field theory with a negative cosmological constant.

Static and magic angle spinning (MAS) nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) experiments were carried out on 1H, 13C, and 14N nuclei in order to understand the structural changes of the N(CH3)4 groups in [N(CH3)4]2CoBr4 near the ferroelastic phasetransition temperature TC. The two chemically inequivalent N(CH3)4 groups were distinguished using 13C cross-polarization/(CP)MAS and 14N static NMR. The changes in chemical shifts, line intensities, and the spin-lattice relaxation time near TC can be correlated with the changing structural geometry, which underlies the phasetransition. The 14N NMR spectra indicated a crystal symmetry change at TC, which is related to the ferroelastic domain with different orientations of the N(CH3)4 groups. The ferroelastic domain walls were confirmed by optical polarizing microscopy, and the wall orientations were described by the Sapriel theory. The transition to the ferroelastic phase was found to be related to the orientational ordering of the N(CH3)4 groups.

To study the optical properties of polymeric samples, an experimental apparatus was designed on purpose and set up. The sample is a thin film enclosed between two glass slides and a PTFE frame, with a very thin thermocouple placed on sample for direct temperature measurement. This sample holder was placed between two aluminum slabs, equipped with a narrow slit for optical measurements and with electrical resistances for temperature control. Sample was enlightened by a laser diode, whereas transmitted light was detected with a photodiode. Measurements were carried out on polyethylene-terephtalate (PET) and two different polyamides, tested as pure polymers and blends. The thermal history imposed to the sample consisted in a rapid heating from ambient temperature to a certain temperature below the melting point, a stabilization period, and then a heating at constant rate. After a second stabilization period, the sample was cooled. The data obtained were compared with DSC measurements performed with the same thermal history. In correspondence with transitions detected via DSC (e.g. melting, crystallization and cold crystallization), the optical signal showed a steep variation. In particular, crystallization resulted in a rapid decrease of transmitted light, whereas melting gave up an increase of light transmitted by the sample. Further variations in transmitted light were recorded for blends, after melting: those results may be related to other phasetransitions, e.g. liquid-liquid phase separation. All things considered, the apparatus can be used to get reliable data on phasetransitions in polymeric systems.

We study the correlation between the value of the triple Higgs coupling and the nature of the electroweak phasetransition. We use an effective potential approach, including higher order, nonrenormalizable terms coming from integrating out new physics. We show that if only the dimension six operators are considered, large positive deviations of the triple Higgs coupling from its standard model (SM) value are predicted in the regions of parameter space consistent with a strong first order electroweak phasetransition. We also show that at higher orders sizable and negative deviations of the triple Higgs coupling may be obtained, and the sign of the corrections tends to be correlated with the order of the phasetransition. We also consider a singlet extension of the SM, which allows us to establish the connection with the effective field theory approach and analyze the limits of its validity. Furthermore, we study how to probe the triple Higgs coupling from the double Higgs production at the LHC. We show that selective cuts in the invariant mass of the two Higgs bosons should be used, to maximize the sensitivity for values of the triple Higgs coupling significantly different from the standard model one.

A hybrid quantum architecture was proposed to engineer a localization-delocalization phasetransition of light in a two-dimension square lattices of superconducting coplanar waveguide resonators, which are interconnected by current-biased Josephson junction phase qubits. We find that the competition between the on-site repulsion and the nonlocal photonic hopping leads to the Mott insulator-superfluid transition. By using the mean-field approach and the quantum master equation, the phase boundary between these two different phases could be obtained when the dissipative effects of superconducting resonators and phase qubit are considered. The good tunability of the effective on-site repulsion and photon-hopping strengths enable quantum simulation on condensed matter physics and many-body models using such a superconducting resonator lattice system. The experimental feasibility is discussed using the currently available technology in the circuit QED.

Recent experimental results indicate that phosphorus, a single-component system, can have a high-density liquid (HDL) and a low-density liquid (LDL) phase. A first-order LDL-HDL transition line ending in a critical point is consistent with experimental data and Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations for a variety of single-component systems such as water, silica and carbon, but a coherent and general interpretation of the LDL-HDL transition is lacking. By means of MD, we show that the LDL-HDL transition can be directly related to an interaction potential with an attractive part and with not one but `two' preferred short-range repulsive distances. This kind of interaction is common to other single-component materials in the liquid state, in particular liquid metals. For the fisrt time, we show that the LDL-HDL transition can occur in systems with no density anomaly, opening an experimental challenge to uncover a liquid-liquid transition in systems like liquid metals, regardless of the presence of the density anomaly.

Interdependent networks are more fragile under random attacks than simplex networks, because interlayer dependencies lead to cascading failures and finally to a sudden collapse. This is a hybrid phasetransition (HPT), meaning that at the transition point the order parameter has a jump but there are also critical phenomena related to it. Here we study these phenomena on the Erdős-Rényi and the two-dimensional interdependent networks and show that the hybrid percolation transition exhibits two kinds of critical behaviors: divergence of the fluctuations of the order parameter and power-law size distribution of finite avalanches at a transition point. At the transition point global or "infinite" avalanches occur, while the finite ones have a power law size distribution; thus the avalanche statistics also has the nature of a HPT. The exponent β_{m} of the order parameter is 1/2 under general conditions, while the value of the exponent γ_{m} characterizing the fluctuations of the order parameter depends on the system. The critical behavior of the finite avalanches can be described by another set of exponents, β_{a} and γ_{a}. These two critical behaviors are coupled by a scaling law: 1-β_{m}=γ_{a}. PMID:27176256

Interdependent networks are more fragile under random attacks than simplex networks, because interlayer dependencies lead to cascading failures and finally to a sudden collapse. This is a hybrid phasetransition (HPT), meaning that at the transition point the order parameter has a jump but there are also critical phenomena related to it. Here we study these phenomena on the Erdős-Rényi and the two-dimensional interdependent networks and show that the hybrid percolation transition exhibits two kinds of critical behaviors: divergence of the fluctuations of the order parameter and power-law size distribution of finite avalanches at a transition point. At the transition point global or "infinite" avalanches occur, while the finite ones have a power law size distribution; thus the avalanche statistics also has the nature of a HPT. The exponent βm of the order parameter is 1 /2 under general conditions, while the value of the exponent γm characterizing the fluctuations of the order parameter depends on the system. The critical behavior of the finite avalanches can be described by another set of exponents, βa and γa. These two critical behaviors are coupled by a scaling law: 1 -βm=γa .

Protein condensations, such as crystallization, liquid-liquid phase separation, aggregation, and gelation, have been observed in concentrated antibody solutions under various solution conditions. While most IgG antibodies are quite soluble, a few outliers can undergo condensation under physiological conditions. Condensation of IgGs can cause serious consequences in some human diseases and in biopharmaceutical formulations. The phasetransitions underlying protein condensations in concentrated IgG solutions is also of fundamental interest for the understanding of the phase behavior of non-spherical protein molecules. Due to the high solubility of generic IgGs, the phase behavior of IgG solutions has not yet been well studied. In this work, we present an experimental approach to study IgG solutions in which the phasetransitions are hidden below the freezing point of the solution. Using this method, we have investigated liquid-liquid phase separation of six human myeloma IgGs and two recombinant pharmaceutical human IgGs. We have also studied the relation between crystallization and liquid-liquid phase separation of two human cryoglobulin IgGs. Our experimental results reveal several important features of the generic phase behavior of IgG solutions: (1) the shape of the coexistence curve is similar for all IgGs but quite different from that of quasi-spherical proteins; (2) all IgGs have critical points located at roughly the same protein concentration at ∼100 mg/ml while their critical temperatures vary significantly; and (3) the liquid-liquid phase separation in IgG solutions is metastable with respect to crystallization. These features of phase behavior of IgG solutions reflect the fact that all IgGs have nearly identical molecular geometry but quite diverse net inter-protein interaction energies. This work provides a foundation for further experimental and theoretical studies of the phase behavior of generic IgGs as well as outliers with large propensity to

Protein condensations, such as crystallization, liquid-liquid phase separation, aggregation, and gelation, have been observed in concentrated antibody solutions under various solution conditions. While most IgG antibodies are quite soluble, a few outliers can undergo condensation under physiological conditions. Condensation of IgGs can cause serious consequences in some human diseases and in biopharmaceutical formulations. The phasetransitions underlying protein condensations in concentrated IgG solutions is also of fundamental interest for the understanding of the phase behavior of non-spherical protein molecules. Due to the high solubility of generic IgGs, the phase behavior of IgG solutions has not yet been well studied. In this work, we present an experimental approach to study IgG solutions in which the phasetransitions are hidden below the freezing point of the solution. Using this method, we have investigated liquid-liquid phase separation of six human myeloma IgGs and two recombinant pharmaceutical human IgGs. We have also studied the relation between crystallization and liquid-liquid phase separation of two human cryoglobulin IgGs. Our experimental results reveal several important features of the generic phase behavior of IgG solutions: (1) the shape of the coexistence curve is similar for all IgGs but quite different from that of quasi-spherical proteins; (2) all IgGs have critical points located at roughly the same protein concentration at ˜100 mg/ml while their critical temperatures vary significantly; and (3) the liquid-liquid phase separation in IgG solutions is metastable with respect to crystallization. These features of phase behavior of IgG solutions reflect the fact that all IgGs have nearly identical molecular geometry but quite diverse net inter-protein interaction energies. This work provides a foundation for further experimental and theoretical studies of the phase behavior of generic IgGs as well as outliers with large propensity to

The honeycomb lattice of graphene is characterized by linear dispersion and pseudospin chirality of fermions on the Dirac cones. If lattice anisotropy is introduced, the Dirac cones stay intact but move in reciprocal space. Dirac point movement can lead to a topological transition from semimetal to semiconductor when two inequivalent Dirac points merge, an idea that has attracted significant research interest. However, such movement normally requires unrealistically high lattice anisotropy. Here we show that anisotropic defects can break the C3 symmetry of graphene, leading to Dirac point drift in the Brillouin zone. Additionally, the long-range order in periodically patterned graphene can induce intervalley scattering between two inequivalent Dirac points, resulting in a semimetal-to-insulator topological phasetransition. The magnitude and direction of Dirac point drift are predicted analytically, which are consistent with our first-principles electronic structure calculations. Thus, periodically patterned graphene can be used to study the fascinating physics associated with Dirac point movement and the corresponding phasetransition.The honeycomb lattice of graphene is characterized by linear dispersion and pseudospin chirality of fermions on the Dirac cones. If lattice anisotropy is introduced, the Dirac cones stay intact but move in reciprocal space. Dirac point movement can lead to a topological transition from semimetal to semiconductor when two inequivalent Dirac points merge, an idea that has attracted significant research interest. However, such movement normally requires unrealistically high lattice anisotropy. Here we show that anisotropic defects can break the C3 symmetry of graphene, leading to Dirac point drift in the Brillouin zone. Additionally, the long-range order in periodically patterned graphene can induce intervalley scattering between two inequivalent Dirac points, resulting in a semimetal-to-insulator topological phasetransition. The

We propose that the respiratory transition at birth passes through three distinct, but overlapping phases, which reflect different physiological states of the lung. Accordingly, respiratory support given to infants should be optimised to suit the underlying physiological state of the lung as it passes through each phase. During the first phase, the airways are liquid-filled and so no pulmonary gas exchange can occur. Respiratory support should, therefore, be focused on clearing the gas exchange regions of liquid. In the absence of gas exchange, little or no CO2will accumulate within the airways and, therefore, interrupting inflation pressures to allow the lung to deflate and exhale CO2is unnecessary. This is the primary rationale for administering a sustained inflation at birth. During the second phase, the gas exchange regions are mostly cleared of liquid, allowing pulmonary gas exchange to commence. However, the liquid cleared from the airways resides within the tissue during this phase, which increases perialveolar interstitial tissue pressures and the risk of liquid re-entry back into the airways. As a result, respiratory support should be optimised to minimise alveolar re-flooding during expiration, which can be achieved by applying an end-expiratory pressure. The third and final phase occurs when the liquid is eventually cleared from lung tissue. Although gas exchange may be restricted by lung immaturity, injury and inflammation during this phase, considerations of how fetal lung liquid can adversely affect lung function are no longer relevant. PMID:26542877

The tetragonal-orthorhombic structural phasetransition of oxygen atoms in the basal plane of YBa2Cu3O6 +δ high-TC cuprate superconductors is studied numerically. By mapping the system onto the asymmetric next-nearest-neighbor Ising model, we characterize this phasetransition. Results indicate the degrees of critical behavior. We show that this phasetransition occurs at the temperature TC≃0.148 eV in the thermodynamic limit. By analyzing the critical exponents, it is found that this universality class displays some common features, with the two-dimensional three-state Potts model universality class, although the possibility of other universality classes cannot be ruled out. Conformal invariance at T =Tc is investigated using the Schramm-Loewner evolution (SLE) technique, and it is found that the SLE diffusivity parameter for this system is 3.34 ±0.01 .

Temperature-dependent dielectric permittivity of lead-free (LixNa1-x)NbO3 for nominal x = 0.04-0.20, prepared by solid state reaction followed by sintering, was studied to resolve often debated issue pertaining to exactness of morphotropic phase boundary (MPB) location besides structural aspects and phase stability in the system near MPB. Interestingly, a diffuse phasetransition has been observed in the dielectric permittivity peak arising from the disorderinduced in A-site and structural frustration in the perovskite cell due to Li substitution. A partial phase diagram has been proposed based on temperature-dependent dielectric permittivity studies. The room temperature piezoelectric and ferroelectric properties were investigated and the ceramics with x = 0.12 showed relatively good electrical properties (d33 = 28 pC/N, kp = 13.8%, Qm = 440, Pr = 12.5 μC/cm2, Ec = 43.2 kV/cm, and Tm = 340 °C). These parameter values make this material suitable for piezoelectric resonator and filter applications. Moreover, a high dielectric permittivity (ɛ'r = 2703) with broad diffuse peak near transition temperature, and low dielectric loss (<4%) over a wide temperature range (50-250 °C) found in this material may also have a potential application in high-temperature multilayer capacitors in automotive and aerospace related industries.

The transitions between smectic, nematic, and isotropic phases are investigated in the framework of a unified molecular-statistical approach. The new translational order parameter is different from the one introduced in K. Kobayashi [Phys. Lett. A 31, 125 (1970)] and W. L. McMillan [Phys. Rev. A 4, 1238 (1971)]. The variance of the square sine of intermolecular shift angle along the director is introduced to take self-consistently into account the most probable location of the molecules with respect to each other, which is unique for every liquid crystal (LC) material and is mainly responsible for the order parameters and phase sequences. The mean molecular field was treated in terms of only two parameters specific to any intermolecular potential of elongated molecules: (1) its global minimum position with respect to the shift of two interacting molecules along the director and (2) its inhomogeneity/anisotropy ratio. A simple molecular model is also introduced, where the global minimum position is determined by the linking groups elongation Δ/d, while the inhomogeneity/anisotropy ratio Gβ/Gγ is determined by the ratio of electrostatic and dispersion contributions. All possible phase sequences, including abrupt/continuous transformation between the smectic and nematic states and the direct smectic-isotropic phasetransition, are predicted. The theoretical prediction is in a good agreement with experimental data for some simple materials correlating with our molecular model, but it is expected to be valid for any LC material.

The salt effect on the phasetransition of N-isopropylacrylamide (NIPA) gel was studied for alkali-metal chlorides (NaCl, KCl, and CsCl). Low-frequency Raman scattering experiment was conducted to know the dynamic state of water molecule under the presence of salt and its correlation to macroscopic phase behavior of the gel was investigated together with the thermodynamic activities of water molecule of aqueous alkali-metal chloride solutions. The series of swelling experiment reveal that the change in the gel volume phasetransition strongly depends on the salt concentration and is related to the dehydration with respect to hydrophobic hydration. From the analysis of the reduced low-frequency Raman spectra in water and aqueous alkali-metal chlorides solutions by the use of the relaxation mode that takes into account the inertia and the non-white effects, the characteristic values of aqueous salt solutions (i.e., relaxation time and modulation speed) indicate that the addition of alkali-metal chloride to gel fluid affects the disruption of water molecules in the hydration shell around the NIPA gel and the formation of the hydrogen-bonded network structure of water around themselves, as a result of which the gel collapses. The chemical potential and the dynamic nature of water molecule at the transition points are well correlated: the chemical potentials at the transition points are almost constant whereas the structure of bulk water is changed by addition of alkali-metal chlorides or change in temperature. These results strongly suggest that the swelling ratio of N-isopropylacrylamide gel is a function of hydration degree, which is regulated by the chemical potential of water. PMID:11909100

The topological phases originating in spin-orbital coupling systems have attracted great attention in modern condensed matter physics. Many interesting phenomena have been found in recent theoretical and experimental works, such as the integer and fractional quantum Hall effect, topological band insulator, topological Mott insulator, and topological superconductor. We have investigated the topological phasetransition on honeycomb lattice with third neighbor hooping by employing the cellular dynamical mean-field theory combining with the continuous-time Monte Carlo method. The non-trivial topological insulator can be found by observing the spin Chern number directly, and the effects of the third neighbor hopping and interaction are also discussed. Furthermore, we also provide the whole phase diagram for interaction, third neighbor hopping, and temperature. This work is supported by the Texas Center for Superconductivity at the University of Houston and by the Robert A. Welch Foundation under Grant No. E-1146.

DNA-grafted nanoparticles have been called "programmable atom-equivalents": Like atoms, they form three-dimensional crystals, but unlike atoms, the particles themselves carry information (the sequences of the grafted strands) that can be used to "program" the equilibrium crystal structures. We show that the programmability of these colloids can be generalized to the full temperature-dependent phase diagram, not just the crystal structures themselves. We add information to the buffer in the form of soluble DNA strands designed to compete with the grafted strands through strand displacement. Using only two displacement reactions, we program phase behavior not found in atomic systems or other DNA-grafted colloids, including arbitrarily wide gas-solid coexistence, reentrant melting, and even reversible transitions between distinct crystal phases. PMID:25657244

We propose a finite element technique to enhance phase-field simulations. As adaptive p-method it and can be generally applied to finite element formulations. However, diffuse interfaces have non-linear gradients within regions typically smaller compared to the size of the overall model. Thus, enhanced field interpolation with higher polynomial functions on demand allows for coarser meshing or lower regularization length for the phasetransition. Our method preserves continuity of finite elements and is particularly advantageous in the context of parallelized computing. An analytical solution for the evolution of a phase-field variable governed by the Allen-Cahn equation is used to define an error measure and to investigate the proposed method. Several examples demonstrate the capability of this finite element technique.

Ge2Sb2Te5-based phase-change memories (PCMs), which undergo fast and reversible switching between amorphous and crystalline structural transformation, are being utilized for nonvolatile data storage. However, a critical obstacle is the high programming current of the PCM cell, resulting from the limited pattern size of the optical lithography-based heater. Here, we suggest a facile and scalable strategy of utilizing self-structured conductive filament (CF) nanoheaters for Joule heating of chalcogenide materials. This CF nanoheater can replace the lithographical-patterned conventional resistor-type heater. The sub-10 nm contact area between the CF and the phase-change material achieves significant reduction of the reset current. In particular, the PCM cell with a single Ni filament nanoheater can be operated at an ultralow writing current of 20 μA. Finally, phase-transition behaviors through filament-type nanoheaters were directly observed by using transmission electron microscopy. PMID:26039415

Labyrinthine patterns arise in two-dimensional physical systems submitted to competing interactions, in fields ranging from solid-state physics to hydrodynamics. For systems of interacting particles, labyrinthine and stripe phases were studied in the context of colloidal particles confined into a monolayer, both numerically by means of Monte Carlo simulations and experimentally using superparamagnetic particles. Here we report an experimental observation of a labyrinthine phase in an out-of-equilibrium system constituted of macroscopic particles. Once sufficiently magnetized, they organize into short chains of particles in contact and randomly orientated. We characterize the transition from a granular gas state towards a solid labyrinthine phase, as a function of the ratio of the interaction strength to the kinetic agitation. The spatial local structure is analyzed by means of accurate particle tracking. Moreover, we explain the formation of these chains using a simple model.

Coupling a quantum many-body system to a cavity can create bifurcation points in its phase diagram, where the ground state makes sudden switchings between different phases. Here we study the dynamical quantum phasetransition of a transverse field Ising model coupled to a cavity. We show that an infinitesimal quench of the cavity driving at the bifurcation points induces gradual evolution of the Ising model to pass across the quantum critical point and excites quasiparticles. Meanwhile, when the driving is slowly ramped through the bifurcation points, the adiabaticity of the evolution and the number of quasiparticle excitations are strongly affected by cavity-induced nonlinearity. Introducing and manipulating cavity-induced nonlinearity hence provide an effective approach to control the dynamics and the adiabaticity of adiabatic quantum processes. This model can be implemented with superconducting quantum circuits.

The topology of a topological material can be encoded in its surface states. These surface states can only be removed by a bulk topological quantum phasetransition into a trivial phase. Here we use photoemission spectroscopy to image the formation of protected surface states in a topological insulator as we chemically tune the system through a topological transition. Surprisingly, we discover an exotic spin-momentum locked, gapped surface state in the trivial phase that shares many important properties with the actual topological surface state in anticipation of the change of topology. Using a spin-resolved measurement, we show that apart from a surface bandgap these states develop spin textures similar to the topological surface states well before the transition. Our results offer a general paradigm for understanding how surface states in topological phases arise from a quantum phasetransition and are suggestive for the future realization of Weyl arcs, condensed matter supersymmetry and other fascinating phenomena in the vicinity of a quantum criticality. PMID:25882717

The topology of a topological material can be encoded in its surface states. These surface states can only be removed by a bulk topological quantum phasetransition into a trivial phase. Here we use photoemission spectroscopy to image the formation of protected surface states in a topological insulator as we chemically tune the system through a topological transition. Surprisingly, we discover an exotic spin-momentum locked, gapped surface state in the trivial phase that shares many important properties with the actual topological surface state in anticipation of the change of topology. Using a spin-resolved measurement, we show that apart from a surface bandgap these states develop spin textures similar to the topological surface states well before the transition. Our results offer a general paradigm for understanding how surface states in topological phases arise from a quantum phasetransition and are suggestive for the future realization of Weyl arcs, condensed matter supersymmetry and other fascinating phenomena in the vicinity of a quantum criticality. PMID:25882717

The topology of a topological material can be encoded in its surface states. These surface states can only be removed by a bulk topological quantum phasetransition into a trivial phase. Here we use photoemission spectroscopy to image the formation of protected surface states in a topological insulator as we chemically tune the system through a topological transition. Surprisingly, we discover an exotic spin-momentum locked, gapped surface state in the trivial phase that shares many important properties with the actual topological surface state in anticipation of the change of topology. Using a spin-resolved measurement, we show that apart from amore » surface bandgap these states develop spin textures similar to the topological surface states well before the transition. Our results provide a general paradigm for understanding how surface states in topological phases arise from a quantum phasetransition and are suggestive for the future realization of Weyl arcs, condensed matter supersymmetry and other fascinating phenomena in the vicinity of a quantum criticality.« less

The topology of a topological material can be encoded in its surface states. These surface states can only be removed by a bulk topological quantum phasetransition into a trivial phase. Here we use photoemission spectroscopy to image the formation of protected surface states in a topological insulator as we chemically tune the system through a topological transition. Surprisingly, we discover an exotic spin-momentum locked, gapped surface state in the trivial phase that shares many important properties with the actual topological surface state in anticipation of the change of topology. Using a spin-resolved measurement, we show that apart from a surface bandgap these states develop spin textures similar to the topological surface states well before the transition. Our results provide a general paradigm for understanding how surface states in topological phases arise from a quantum phasetransition and are suggestive for the future realization of Weyl arcs, condensed matter supersymmetry and other fascinating phenomena in the vicinity of a quantum criticality.